All The Right Reasons
by Xenexian
Summary: In the eyes of the Wizarding world, blood status is everything. It is the new order of the world, a world that is pressing down on everyone and everything. The only safe place is Hogwarts, and even that safety is crumbling away. LxJ with a difference. R&R
1. Let the flames begin

_**27/10/2012**_

_**This is the edited version of ATTR that I did for Wattpad; I figured that as I have edited the chapters to put up there, I would also post them here. Nothing too major has been changed, only typos etc, but that's better than nothing. Enjoy!**_

**A/N:** So this is an idea I've been playing around with for a while now: a Lily/James fanficlet of my own creation, something with tolerable fluff that I actually CAN write with lots of Sirius (because I heart him) and my awesome Ocs Ylana and Seb (because they're more awesome than words). I apologise in advance for this rubbish chapter length, I promise you that it will get better (trust me on this; I've written up to chapter 5 and the chapters sometimes go up to 2500 words). So sit back, relax and let the story unfold before your eyes. I also apologise in advance for any unseen typos or grammatical errors in this; I have edited it three times, but if you see any, just PM me and I'll edit again. Thanks!

**Dedication:** This first chapter is dedicated to many people: the NaNoWriMo-ers who encouraged me, to Zoe who writes insanely well, to PottedLillies (Kayla) who has written THE BEST Marauders Era fanfiction in the history of the world (go and check out 'Of Raindrops, Flowers and Wishing Wells'!) and to Ylana, my very own OC, who's tragic demise in my latest RP will be remembered forever.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter in any way, it all belongs to the amazingly brilliant J. K. Rowling who I bow down to.

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><p><strong>Chapter One<br>****_Let the flames begin  
><em>****'Let The Flames Begin', Paramore**

"Freak."

It was sort of funny, Lily Evans thought, that, after hearing her sister call her a freak all summer, this one word could still hurt her. Ever since the time Lily had received her letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft of Wizardry six years previously, Petunia had been bitter. She had been jealous that her younger sister would get to go to a magic school and she was stuck in the local Muggle secondary school. Petunia flipped her long hair around her face and turned her back on Lily, who stared at her sister's back for a second before sighing and looking away herself.

Mr and Mrs Evans were standing a short way away, looking around the platform eagerly, as if trying to memorise it.

"Lily, dear, are you sure you've got all your things? You have so many books in your trunk this year..." her mother asked, eyeing the wooden trunk.

"Yes, mum. I charmed my clothes, remember?" Lily replied; her seventeenth birthday had been two days before the start of term. She had magically reduced the size of her clothes so that her new school books could fit into the trunk. She was straining her neck to catch a glimpse of her friends, and an untidy black head bobbed in the crowd. Said head was moving towards her rather quickly, and she froze. "Crap," she muttered, turning away. "Not Potter; anyone but Potter." She prayed, when a deep and familiar voice sounded behind her.

"Hey, Evans" She mentally cursed, turning back around.

"Potter." she said curtly.

"Who's this?" Mr Evans asked, looking from Lily to Potter.

"I'm James Potter, Mr Evans. Very nice to meet you. And you Mrs Evans." Potter said politely while Lily scowled from behind him. "Hello Petunia," he added, seeing Lily's sister. She glared at him frostily.

"Freak!" she spat before flouncing away back towards the Muggle world. Potter looked a little confused, so Mr Evans made an attempt to explain.

"She's a little..." he began, suddenly at a loss as to what to say. Lily finished for him.

"Jealous." Her father frowned at her and Lily made a point of looking away.

"Right... So, Evans, coming to the Heads Compartment? We need to brief the new Prefects." Potter asked. Lily gawped at him.

"You... You're... No. No _way_. You're not Head Boy." she stuttered flatly, her own Head Girl badge gleaming on her chest. Potter laughed.

"As a matter of fact, I am. No need to look so surprised," he chuckled. Lily stared at him. There was no way in hell that James Potter was Head Boy. "Are you coming?" he asked and Lily grabbed the end of her trunk and pulled it forward a few feet. She allowed her parents to kiss her on the cheek and then followed Potter to the Hogwarts Express.

After depositing their trunks in the hold, they walked along the hallway to the very back of the train, where the Prefects were already waiting.

"Well. I'm James Potter," Lily noticed that several girls had started giggling. "And I'm this year's Head Boy. This is Lily Evans, Head Girl. This year, you will be reporting to us with any problems. Anything else?" he said, looking sideways at Lily for help. She was instantly frustrated and glared at him. She had worked her whole time at Hogwarts for this position and he just flounced in, no preparation at all, and attempted to take lead.

"We'll draw up patrol rounds and you'll have to tell us if any of the Prefect duties interrupt revision time. As Prefects, you have the power to put any rule-breaking students in detention and to dock up to ten House Points at a time. But you must use this power responsibly." She added, looking pointedly at James. Lily checked her watch and saw that it was eleven o'clock; immediately she heard the thundering of many pairs of feet walking through the train, jockeying for compartments. She pulled a sheet of parchment out of her pocket and glanced down at the neatly written names. "Janis and Harry you two take the top of the train with Amy, Jack, Roger and Katie. Sally, Daphne, Amelia, Fred, Ernie and Neil – you lot take the bottom half of the train. Make sure everybody stays in their compartments unless they're going to the toilet or anything, and if they leave, make sure they're not doing anything," she paused to glance at Potter. "Against the rules. We're giving you two nights a week free for OWL or NEWT study. If you're on your house Quidditch team, you might have to use those free nights for practices, but if you tell us the practice timetables, we might be able to sort something out. Off you go." She reeled off, as the younger Prefects left the compartment. Finally, only Lily, James, Remus Lupin and another girl remained behind.

"Well done, Prongs; short but sweet." Remus Lupin congratulated Potter as Lily raised an eyebrow.

"As I said seven years ago," said a tall girl with pale skin, long black hair and bright blue eyes called Ylana Thomson. "What sort of nickname is that?"

"An insightful one, if you get my drift, Ylana," Potter said, winking meaningfully at the black-haired girl. Ylana rolled her eyes.

"I'm just glad that we're going back," Lily said, sitting down next to Ylana. "In the meantime, I hope that the trolley lady hurries up; I'm starving."

Ylana laughed and pulled her feet under her tall frame as she jostled on the seat to make herself more comfortable. "I'm glad you're Head Girl. You get all the best things at Hogwarts now." She sighed, stretching her arms out behind her head. Lily turned her head and looked at her best friend.

"What?"

"Well," Ylana began, tucking a piece of raven hair behind her ear. "You get the Heads compartment here on the train, you get the Heads room on the second floor and you get your own bathroom. Oh," she added. "And if you miss a meal, the Elves send up food to you. And guess what?" she said, ticking these off her fingers like she was going down a list.

"What?"

"Senior Prefects get to share it with you! Well, almost _all_ of it, anyway." she corrected  
>herself.<p>

"Wow," Lily said: she hadn't known that they would get all that! A voice came on over the loudspeaker, reminding them that they could now get changed as there was a fair amount of time until they got to Hogsmeade station. So Lily and Ylana pulled their robes out of the jumbled heap of carry-on items from the seats at the back of the room and walked down to the toilets to change. James, who had been staring after Lily, looked back to Remus, who was smiling at him.

"Don't worry. She'll come around eventually." he said in a reassuring voice, pulling his robes over his head, adjusting his red and gold Gryffindor tie.

"You've been saying that for nearly six years, Remus," James reminded his friend, pulling his own tie around his neck.

"I know. But I have a good feeling about this year." Remus replied, reaching into his bag and pulling out a thick book with a bookmark marking a point around a quarter of the way into the book. Settling back into his seat, he opened the novel and began reading. James sat down next to him and waited for the arrival of his other friends and for the train to finally slow.

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><p><strong>AN:** Well, that took a while to type up from my laptop to my desktop. But I hope you enjoyed it! It's pretty good writing for me while under so much stress from school. Reviews are welcome :D

-Lauren


	2. Fall on your face

**A/N:** So! I thought I'd update again because of these totally nice reviews I got from good friends, it was totally awesome to see that they liked it! Anyways, the last chapter was merely filler and the story starts properly NOW. I love this chapter so much, it always makes me laugh.

**Dedication:** This chapter is dedicated to Becky who RPs (sooo excited), to zoesalvatore for reviewing awesomely and also to LeilaThe RainbowNinja for reviewing too. You make my world go round!

**Disclaimer:** I admit that I do not own the Potterverse in any way, shape or form, though I wish I did. I do own Ylana though. I also wrote the Sorting Hat's song all by myself! Woo!

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<br>****_Fall on your face  
>'<em>****Throwing Punches', Paramore**

At six o'clock, the Hogwarts Express slowed to a halt in Hogsmeade station where the familiar cries of 'Firs' years! This way!' greeted the seventh-years. Lily and James ushered everyone off the train.

"By the way, Evans. We're supposed to be in the boats with the first-years!" James shouted over to Lily. She nodded and they shut the compartment doors along the side of the Hogwarts Express, next heading off towards the Black lake. The first-years were just getting into the small boats and Hagrid walked over to them

"Alrigh', James, Lily? Wanna grab a boat here 'n there?" he asked and walked over to a boat for himself. James climbed into a boat containing three boys while Lily chose one with three girls in. The small wooden contraptions started off at a slow pace, sailing gracefully through the Black water and they were nearly at the castle when a loud splash behind her notified Lily that a student had fallen into the lake. She twisted around quickly and saw Potter's head break the surface of the water, spluttering and casting around for his glasses. He pointed at one of the boys, who was laughing raucously, and said: "Five points from whatever house you get sorted into! You could've bloody killed me!" This only made the first-years laugh harder, so he swam blindly over to the side of the boat Lily was in. She shook her head, smiling, and grabbed his arm, pulling him into the seat next to her.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter.

"The littlest one with the messy hair pushed me out the side of the damn boat! Told me he'd seen the Giant Squid, so I looked around to see if he was right (you know how they are, always scaring themselves) and the next thing I knew I was in the sodding lake!" He exclaimed, spitting part of an underwater plant from his mouth. "I can't see a thing," he added angrily, reaching up to swipe his soaked hair from his eyes. Pointing his wand into the water, he muttered "Accio glasses," and the round glasses zoomed out of the lake and into his outstretched hand. He put them on gratefully and blinked a few times at his returned sight. Lily stared at him, trying her hardest not to laugh as she took in his sodden form. "What?" he asked, looking down at his robes.

"Nothing," she replied. He narrowed his eyes at her playfully before turning away again, pulling various weeds from every part of himself that he could reach and chuckling.

Within ten minutes, they were standing in the entrance hall; James was shivering violently as Lily pushed the oak doors to the great hall open. The Ravenclaw table and all the Hufflepuffs started whispering at the sight of James Potter looking as though he had half drowned, while the Gryffindors and Slytherins burst into laughter. A tall boy with long, messy black hair that fell elegantly into storm-grey eyes stoop up and promptly shoved Peter Pettigrew out of the way so the Head Boy and Girl could sit down next to him.

"What in the name of Merlin happened?" Sirius gasped, clutching his ribs as he laughed in his bark-like fashion. James pushed his hair out of his eyes and began explaining what had happened, gesturing wildly, splattering everyone in the near vicinity with stagnant water.

"...and then, the cheeky sod, started bloody _laughing!_ Laughing, I tell you..." he said, while everyone was waiting for Professor McGonagall to re-enter the hall with the new students.

"Tell you what, Prongs, old mate, this kid doesn't half remind me of you. Remember when we pushed the head boy out of _our_ boat when we were in first year?" Sirius said, a grin forming on his face.

"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Wasn't that Albert Pringle?" James replied, frowning.

"Yeah. He took points off us every chance he got after that." Sirius said, sighing. "And to think we were almost always innocent." Lily snorted while Ylana rolled her eyes at them. "I said _almost_," Sirius reminded them just as Professor McGonagall entered the Great Hall with a line of eleven year-olds behind her. She set the sorting hat down on a small, three-legged stool. The whole school watched the hat in anticipation as a small rip opened and formed a mouth.

_When I was once a new-bought hat,  
>Hogwarts School did start;<br>Without the wars which hold us back,  
>We all beat with one heart.<br>"The best way to educate  
>Young sorcerers," did say<br>Bold Gryffindor, who hatched a plan,  
>To make what we know today.<br>Young Slytherin, who did approve,  
>Agreed with this idea,<br>And swore that he would help his friends  
>When the time came near.<br>Fair Hufflepuff, who did add in  
>The path would be quite hard-<br>They would encounter peril there  
>And would not leave unscarred.<br>"We must be cautious while we work,  
>And so remember our goal,"<br>Said intellectual Ravenclaw,  
>Who kept the group as whole.<br>Smart Gryffindor, he found a way,  
>To sort the new-found students,<em>  
><em>Charmed this hat so he could choose,<em>  
><em>While house he deemed most prudent.<br>So now you know the story of  
>Our large and magical school;<br>Come slip me onto your great head  
>And sit upon this stool.<em>

The Great Hall rang with applause when the Sorting Hat finished its song. James was having a little trouble with clapping, as the sleeves of his robes were still heavy with water. Lily sighed and waved her want at him, causing his cloak to steam and then become dry. He grinned at her and then proceeded to run his hand through his hair, making it even messier than it had been before.

McGonagall was unrolling a scroll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will place the hat on your head and sit on the stool. When the sorting hat announces what house you are in, you will sit at the appropriate table." She chose this moment to sweep a stern look across the hall at each and every student before continuing.

"Ashton, Marie!" A tall girl with short brown hair walked confidently up to the stool and pulled the sorting hat eagerly onto her head.

"_Gryffindor!"_ the hat shouted to tumulus applause.

"Baddock, Ashleigh!"

"_Slytherin!"_ There was a lot of booing from the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables while the Slytherins clapped loudly.

And so it went on until the last student, "Wilkinson, Adam!" had been sorted into Ravenclaw. Marie Ashton turned out to be a distant cousin of Ylana's, and therefore of Sirius', as Ylana and Sirius were close cousins. Ylana's mother, Elizabeth, had been a crouch before she married Augustus Thomson. Ylana had disowned her family after she had found out that they were death eaters in her fourth year and had gathered up the gold she had inherited from an uncle and bought a small flat in Muggle London. It turned out that the same uncle had left Sirius a considerable amount of gold as well and he used it to buy his own house in the summer of fifth year. Both Ylana and Sirius were often invited over to Potter Manor for Sunday lunch.

Professor Dumbledore was just getting ready to stand up and address the school when a short, stumpy witch entered the hall. A lot of people only noticed her because she was making a funny clunking noise while she walked between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables. It took her a moment to reach the staff table, but she then took a seat next to Dumbledore, who leaned over to say something to which the witch shook her head.

Finally, the Sorting Hat and stool vanished while Professor Dumbledore stood up to speak.

"To our new students – welcome. To our old students – welcome back. I have only three words to say to you: _enjoy the feast._" he said, sitting down as gold platters of roast potatoes, roast beef and other delicacies appeared on the long wooden tables. Lily piled a bit of everything onto her plate, avoiding the pineapple rock which was also scattered across the table for some reason. Lily was halfway through cutting up her Yorkshire pudding when a girl with long blonde hair picked up a spoon of mashed potato.

"There's something different about this mash than usual," she said, looking at the crushed potato. Lily put some in her mouth and frowned.

"You know what, Marlene, I think you might be right." she replied, looking at it curiously. To her left, a girl who was in her dorm with short blonde hair called Alice Prewett tried some too, as did Dorcas Meadowes and Ylana opposite her.

"I think I know what it is," said a voice from a few seats down from Lily, who looked down the table to see who had spoken. Predictably, it was Sirius. He put some mash on his spoon, aimed, and flung it at Marlene. "It's on your face." he finished.

Marlene wiped the mash out of her eyes slowly, glaring at Sirius. "I hate you right now." She said while Ylana and Sirius laughed. Lily looked at James, half hoping to see him berating his best friend for this complete and utter display of idiocy. However, he was laughing.

"Padfoot, mate, I think you should apologise," he said, making a tissue appear in midair, passing it to Marlene who snatched it from his fingers as though it might be contagious. Lily stared at him in shock of his relatively kind action of conjuring a tissue (usually, he just left you there, covered in whatever disgusting goo the marauders had poured on you). "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Lily replied, looking back down at her plate. There was a pause.

"Were you staring at me?" he questioned, a tone of amusement in both his voice and twinkling hazel eyes.

Lily sensed that he would start teasing her about something she hadn't even done; "Of course not, Potter. Now shut up and eat." She snapped, half expecting him to say something witty and romantic. To her surprise, though, he said nothing.

After Lily's second helping of lemon meringue pie, Professor Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat.

"Welcome, welcome, to another year at Hogwarts, I would like to introduce two new Professors this year. Professor Tindall, who will be this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and also Professor Unwin, our new Divination teacher."

There was a polite smattering of applause for Professor Tindall, the woman who had made her way up to the staff table, and Professor Unwin, a batty tall woman with mad curly hair that resembled a birds nest more than a little with wide dark eyes.

"I must remind you all the forest is out of bounds to all students. Yes, that means you too, Mr's Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew." There was a pause, in which many people laughed; Lily scowled. "Congratulations to our new prefects and our new Head Girl, Miss Lily Evans, and Head Boy, Mr James Potter." Again, Professor Dumbledore paused to allow applause to fill the hall. Lily smiled and held her head that little bit higher. "Quidditch trials will begin on the thirtieth of September. Please apply for a place with your house Quidditch Captain; may I remind all first-years that they are forbidden from playing Quidditch. Now, you all must be up early tomorrow for your lessons, and I imagine that you would like some sleep. Pip, pip." There was a loud scraping noise as all the benches were pulled back and Lily leaped to her feet, ushering the students out of the way so that the first-year Gryffindors could follow the prefects. A sixth-year walked past Lily.

"Wait there. The first-years go first. Wait!" she called, but he appeared not to have heard her. Lily was just about to go after him when James put a hand on the sixth-years shoulder, pulling him back.

"Listen to the Head Girl, three points from Gryffindor." Lily was shocked but pleased that Potter had finally stepped up to him responsibilities. Though the measly three points he had taken surely had to constitute to the fact that he was unwilling to take points from his own house.

Once they had let the first-years into the common room and almost everyone had gone to bed, Lily and James collapsed into two of the comfortable armchairs by the fire, exhausted by the night's work. After a moment of sleepy silence, Lily turned to the black-haired Gryffindor boy and sent him what could be considered a polite smile.

"You did a good job tonight, Potter, considering that it was your first night as Head Boy." she told him awkwardly, not used to paying James Potter, of all people, compliments.

For a moment, he just sat there and stared at her in shock, but then a surprised yet warmly genuine smile lit up his face. "Um, thanks Evans. You did a good job yourself."

She snorted, unimpressed. "I've been a Prefect since fifth-year, Potter; it's all in the practice."

Instead of arguing with her, he just shrugged, clearly deciding that he was too tired to get worked up. "I suppose that you're right, but still; more responsibilities now, Evans. I guess you've taken them on well."

At that, Lily had nothing to say. "Well... thanks Potter. I suppose. Anyway, it's been a long night; we'd better get to bed." She said slowly, standing up, reluctant to leave the comfort of the armchair and the warm fire, walking towards the stairs and stretching her arms above her head as she did so. James nodded but made no move to get up. Lily stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back; he was still sitting in the same position as she had left him. "Are you not coming?" she asked impatiently, too tired to pretend to be polite anymore.

"I'm waiting for Sirius to get back from the kitchens." He mumbled, running a hand through his already messy hair, making it stick on end like he had just walked off the Quidditch pitch.

"It's past curfew," she reminded him tersely.

"He won't get caught."

"Make sure he doesn't!" she snapped. "I don't want to have to give my best friend's cousin detention on the first night back."

Potter sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "Just go to bed, Evans," he muttered. She glared and stomped all the way up to her dormitory, climbing into her pyjamas angrily and then throwing herself into her four-poster. Damn Potter and his rule-breaking friends.

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><p><strong>AN:** So I actually really like this chapter. It was exhausting to type up from my remote laptop, and believe me, over 2500 words is a massive amount to type when you've been playing intense badminton for an hour. I just like the fact that Lily and James had a civil conversation. Granted, it barely comprised of ten words, but still – it's a breakthrough for them. Anyways, review!

-Lauren


	3. I am so delusional

**A/N:** So after reading _zoesalvatore_ and _LeilaTheRainbowNinja_'s respective stories, I feel up to copying up my chapter three. I'd like to mention how hard it was for me lug my laptop around with me trying to find new ideas so I could write them!

**Dedication:** I hereby dedicate this chapter to _zoesalvatore_ and _LeilaTheRainbowNinja_ for keeping me going with this! I owe you all one!

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I don't own the Potterverse. I do, however, own the things that you don't recognise!

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><p><strong>Chapter Three<br>****_I am so delusional  
><em>**'**Dancing With Tears in my Eyes', Ke$ha**

The next morning, Lily woke up early to her owl, Biscuits, tapping at her dormitory window with his beak. She rubbed her eyes, slipping her feet into her slippers and walked over to the glass and let him in. Biscuits dropped an envelope in Lily's hand, chirped, and flew back out of the window again. The loud noise had woken Ylana and Alice up and they both sat up in bed. Ylana pushed her unruly black hair back, yawning, while Alice asked what time it was.

"Half past six," the redhead answered after checking her watch. She sat down on her bed and opened the envelope, which was bearing narrow, curly handwriting that read 'Lily Evans, Gryffindor Tower'. She pulled out a sheet of parchment and unfolded it, scanning through the short letter.

"Half past six? That's too early!" Alice complained while Ylana fell back onto her bed with a muffled thump.

"It's not too early at all. It's actually half an hour later than we usually wake up. And an hour and a half earlier than Marlene wakes up." Lily added, putting her letter back onto her bed and reaching into her trunk to find her skirt, blouse, tie and robes. She stood up and shuffled into the bathroom while Alice muttered something about owls being nocturnal animals.

Twenty minutes later, Lily, Ylana and Alice left the dormitory fully dressed, their hair done and their make-up applied perfectly. When they got to the second floor, Lily bade them goodbye and set off for Professor Dumbledore's office, for that was whom the letter had been signed by. She gave the gargoyle the secret password (pineapple rock) and climbed the tightly spiralling staircase. When she reached the door, she knocked.

"Enter," said a deep voice. Lily walking into the Headmaster's office and closed the door behind her; he indicated that she take a seat and Lily saw that Potter was already in there.

"Hey, Lily." He greeted. Lily glared at him slightly, not used to Potter calling her by her first name. She nodded and turned to look at Dumbledore.

"Now that we are all here, I would like to discuss a few things of great importance with both of you. As this year's Head Boy and Girl, you both have certain responsibilities. You have the power to deduct House Points and also to give out detentions. The first think I must ask of you is to organise the Prefects into their patrol groups. Putting them into pairs should work fairly well, I should think." Dumbledore said, folding his hands underneath his chin, his icy blue eyes twinkling at the two of them over his half moon spectacles. "I must also add that you are permitted to be out in the castle past hours to patrol the school at night, four times a week. You are allowed to organise one event for the year, as has been the tradition at Hogwarts since Professor Fortescue's day. You must talk between yourselves and your Senior Prefects to find out what type of event you would wish to organise. First, though, I must show you where your Head's Dormitory is. Follow me, please." He said, standing up and leading out of his office, down the hall and towards a concealed door. He handed them both large silver keys. When he began walking back to his office, Lily and James started towards the Great Hall, meeting Marlene and Dorcas at the doors.

James sat down next to Sirius, who was sitting next to Ylana. Lily sunk onto the bench next to Marlene, who was opposite James, and helped herself to a piece of toast. Remus and Peter were sitting at the very end of the table; Remus was reading and Peter was hanging onto Sirius and James' every word.

"... Still say that Quidditch practice should be on a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday." Sirius was saying, while Ylana and James shook their heads; James was captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and was also a Chaser alongside Ylana. Sirius was a Beater.

"Nah, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are so much better. We get more time to recover in between." Ylana disagreed with her cousin.

"Ylana's right; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are brilliant." James added. Sirius shrugged his shoulders in defeat. James poured some pumpkin juice into his goblet while Ylana ate her cereal. Remus leaned over to Lily.

"Have you worked out the answer to answer fourteen 'b' yet in the Transfiguration homework?" he asked, folding a page over in his book. Lily shook her head, reaching into her bag for her homework that had to be handed in during their second lesson of the day.

"I put that full-body Transfiguration is extremely hard and requires a maximum amount of concentration. I didn't really understand it that much, like all of Transfiguration." She said, looking down at her parchment. "Any idea what the full answer is?" she added hopefully.

"I'm no great shakes at Transfiguration, but I know that James is brilliant at it, you could ask him." He replied, inclining his head at said person on the opposite side of the Gryffindor table. Lily raised her eyebrows as if to say 'James-who-asked-me-out-254-times-in-a-day'? Remus smiled at her. "Ask him; he'll help you with it." He promised. Lily turned her head to face to face James, who saw her looking and smiled. She screwed up her courage and swallowed her pride.

"Hey, Potter, do you understand the Transfiguration homework?" she asked, crossing her fingers under the table. He leaned his head to one side as if he was confused.

"Yeah, I found it pretty easy. Why?" he replied. Sirius gawped across from her.

"Do you mean to tell me," the latter began, a grin forming on his face. "That Lily Evans, the same Lily Evans who got all eleven OWLs, is finding the Transfiguration homework _hard_?"

"Padfoot, it really was quite hard. And you're one to talk – you had to ask James for help on it." Remus interceded.

"I know I did, Moony, old pal. I'm just in shock." Sirius said back, putting his hand over his heart as if to emphasize his words.

"Do you want me to help you with any of the questions?" James asked, ignoring his friends. Lily looked relieved.

"Would you? I got most of it; it's just a couple of questions." Lily replied, relieved.

James shrugged. "Sure, no problem." Ylana nudged him, glancing meaningfully from Lily to James and the doors, and then back again. She nudged him again and leaned into Sirius to whisper something into her cousin's ear. He grinned and then he too glanced from Lily to James. Lily frowned at them both and saw James' suddenly frowning face. What was going on?

"Do you have any other problems with Transfiguration? We could sort something out, if you wanted to." he asked, throwing a dirty look at Ylana and Sirius as he did so. They both cracked up; even Remus snorted into his pumpkin juice. Lily narrowed her eyes at him and turned back to James.

"Is this a twisted way of asking me out, Potter?" she asked finally. He laughed, though it was with the air of a man who was forcing himself to laugh rather than actually wanting to.

"No, no! I just want to help!" he answered.

"Because I'd rather go out with the Giant Squid," she replied shortly, standing up. "Do you know the answer or not?"

"Yeah! I'll help you with it, I told you I would!" he said, pulling her back onto the bench by her arm and pulling out his own homework, checking Lily's against it. The two different handwritings, one neat and small and the other very loopy and slanted, contrasted wildly. "It's okay, your answer, but it's a bit vague. You need to put in something about Animagi and how long it takes to fully mater full-body Transfiguration." Lily nodded and took a self-inking quill from Ylana, scribbling down that James had suggested.

"How long does it take to fully master full-body Transfiguration, in the terms of Animagi?" she asked.

"Depends on how good at Transfiguration you are in the first place. If you're fairly good at it, about a year and a half, maybe a bit longer. If you're not too good at the subject, you'll probably need somebody to help you with it, and that'll take longer." he added, grinning at Peter, who promptly turned read and fell off his seat. Lily wrote down what he said, then paused as a thought struck her.

"Hey Potter. How do you know this...?" she asked, looking up. Her question had trailed off when she realised that Potter had vanished. She turned to Dorcas. "Where did he go?"

Dorcas shrugged. "Dunno. He was there a second ago." Lily frowned but gathered up her things as the bell rang overhead.

She had just taken her seat in Charms at the front of the class, Professor Flitwick beginning his start-of-term speech, when familiar loopy and slanted handwriting formed on the parchment in front of her.

_Hey Evans. Just wondering – do you understand any of this?_

_-James_

Lily read and re-read the note a few times, her mouth hanging open, before she figured out what Potter had done. She dipped the nib of her quill into the ink bottle beside her and began to write back.

_Yes, Potter, I do. Maybe if you actually listened, you would too._

She tapped the parchment with her wand, watching as her handwriting disappeared. She had just looked back up at the tine Professor Flitwick when she saw a line of writing materialise on the parchment again out of the corner of her eye.

_Ouch, that was totally uncalled for. But really-_

Lily couldn't take it; she interrupted.

_We learned about Switching Spells in fifth-year Potter. Don't tell me you've forgotten about them already._

_Come on, Lils. I can't remember what I did yesterday._

Lily bristled at the parchment, wishing she could burn holes in it with her eyes; nobody but her friends had the right to call her 'Lils'. And Potter was most certainly _not_ her friend. Far from it.

_I can, though. Want me to enlighten you?_

She wrote the words and sent them, then peering over her shoulder to see that James was smirking, shaking his head down at his parchment.

_No thanks, I'm happier not knowing._

_Okay, then – _

Before Lily could finish her sentence, a different kind of handwriting appeared on the parchment.

_Well, well, well. Lily Evans and James Potter, passing notes in class? You'll be snogging in a broom cupboard next!_

_PADFOOT! What are you doing?_

_Adding a bit of atmosphere, Prongs dearest._

_I'll leave you two to it._ Lily wrote, tapping her parchment and adding a spell to it so that they couldn't put writing on it anymore. She could hear Potter whispering as loudly as he dared to Sirius two rows behind her.

"_What were you doing? That's the first time I've ever spoken to Evans without her rejecting me or hexing me!"_ he hissed. Sirius snorted.

"Come on now, boys," Professor Flitwick chastised, looking up from his book. "Back to work please."

Lily risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the end of a death glare that James had sent in the way of his best friend.

The rest of Charms and the whole of Transfiguration passed in a blur of boredom and it was with relief that the seventh-years walked down to lunch in the Great Hall. Lily fell onto the bench at the Gryffindor table, pulled a bowl of beef stew towards her and dug in. Ylana sank down next to her, Dorcas the other side, Alice and Marlene opposite. Sirius bounced onto the seat next to Dorcas, who immediately blushed and turned away; Lily wondered what was going on there. Ylana grinned and began congratulating her cousin for the interruption in Transfiguration but Lily's face fell.

_Wherever Sirius Black is,_ she thought, _James Potter follows._

Sure enough, James took a seat between Alice and Marlene so that he was right opposite Lily. She groaned inwardly as he grabbed a bowl of stew as well.

"Pass the pumpkin juice, will you, Evans?" he asked distractedly, not even looking up. She passed the jug of orange liquid to him grudgingly.

"What did your last slave die of, Potter?" she asked cuttingly. He looked up this time, a glare on his face; after a moment, during which many remarks that looked highly offensive flashed through his head, he turned back to his food. Holding the jug in the general direction of his goblet, he tipped it forward and orange fluid poured out. However, rather than filling the goblet, it instead fell into a large tangerine puddle on the table.

"James, James, James!" Alice exclaimed, alarmed, pulling the jug out of his grasp. James blinked a few times and then looked down at the orange stain on the white tablecloth.

"Oh," he muttered. Lily sighed, pulling out her wand. She waved it mutely and the stain disappeared. James looked up and started to say something, but Lily shot him a look that clearly said 'shut up'.

There was a moment of awkward silence at the table; Dorcas coughed somewhat nervously. "Erm," she said, breaking the ice. "We've got, erm, Potions to get to, so we'd better... Better go..."

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><p><strong>AN:** This is pretty much a filler chapter, but the good stuff happens in chapter four, I promise you. Review, review, review!

-Lauren


	4. You were shaded with patience

**A/N:**** Gah! Life has been hectic since chapter three was posted and all hell has broken loose. So I thought I'd post up chapter 4 for you all as a way to say thank you for your reviews.**

**Dedication:**** Major thanks to **_**LeilaTheRainbowNinja, A Wanderer in the Snow**_** and **_**Absentis Es Dies**_** for reviewing the last chapter! You have inspired me to continue**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own the Potterverse and you all know who it truly belongs to, so bow down to her.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

_**You were shaded with patience**_

'**All We Are', OneRepublic**

The nine Gryffindors walked down to the dungeons together, Ylana laughing with Sirius about some prank that he had pulled over the holidays on James, Dorcas and Marlene avidly discussing some article in _Witch Weekly_ and Remus and Lily chatting animatedly about what Potions they were supposed to be brewing this year.

James, Alice and Peter trudged down the hallway behind their friends. James was Remus and Lily talking with shrewd eyes; Alice eyed a tall Gryffindor with mousy brown hair whose name was Frank Longbottom while Peter was trailing off Sirius' and Ylana's every word about the prank.

"...And then, would you believe it, he jumped up, absolutely _covered_ in feathers and glue, and says to me, he says 'Sirius Orion Black, how dare you pour this over me, I look like an overgrown cockerel'. So I turn around and say-" Sirius was explaining to Ylana, waving his arms around wildly.

"'Cockerels are extremely smart creatures: even though they can't fly, they act like alarm clocks.'" She interrupted, grinning madly. She knew her cousin far too well.

"Exactly!" Sirius exclaimed, arms in the air, grey eyes glittering like a disco ball. Peter squealed, jumping up and down with his excitement. Sirius and Ylana turned to him simultaneously.

"Don't wet yourself," they said together. Marlene looked up from her discussion with Dorcas and smiled at Ylana and Sirius, rolling her eyes.

"Honestly, you two gossip like old ladies." She remarked, only half joking. James snorted, interrupted from his suspicious glaring, a smile making its way onto his face.

"We already knew that, Mar. They always have been like that." He replied; Remus laughed shortly and nodded at his friend's words.

"You can tell that they're related, can't you?" he added, looking over his only friends with obvious pride.

There was a peal of laughter at his comment, coming mostly from Ylana and Sirius themselves. Lily, having been forced out of her conversation when Remus had decided to speak to the rest of the group, joined in half-heartedly; she was trying to avoid talking to Potter if she could help it. She was well practiced in that field, seeing as the Marauders and her group of friends had been mixed together ever since Lily had become friends with Ylana and Marlene. Seeing as Ylana and Marlene hung out with the Marauders all the time, Lily, Dorcas and Alice had ended up around them aswell. This had gotten remarkably awkward when James had started asking Lily out, so she spent most of her time ignoring him.

After a few more comments on Ylana and Sirius' likenesses, the black-haired girl hung back and walked next to Lily for the last stretch of corridor down to the dungeons.

"Looking forward to Potions this year, Lily?" Ylana asked, still smiling. She hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder as they rounded the last corner and joined the line of Gryffindors that were already at the dungeon doors.

"Of course," Lily replied to her best friend, emerald eyes twinkling at the prospect of getting back into her best and favourite lesson. "I bought an extra Potions book over the summer and it was really interesting."

"I bought five," Ylana admitted with a grin. "I wrote to Remus asking if he wanted me to get any of his stuff while I was in Diagon Alley (you know, the day after the full moon), but he said no so I used the extra money to buy more books. I just really want to get into the Auror Department or the Department for the Teaching of Defensive Magic after school, and I need perfect 'Outstanding's in _at least_ five subjects including Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions. I've really been working on Transfig, I'm mediocre at Charms; Potions and Defence sort of come naturally to me." She told Lily earnestly, pasionately. "So improving my Potions can't really hurt, can it?"

Lily shook her head at both the question and at Ylana's attitude. "I just can't believe that you already know what you want to do when you leave school, 'lana. I have vague ideas about getting into Healing, but that's about it. You're so focused."

Ylana shrugged. "I get it from my cousin."

Lily was still laughing at that one when the dungeon door opened and Professor Slughorn's booming voice greeted them to class.

"Oho! Miss Evans and Miss Thomson are back!" he boomed joyfully, rocking on his heels, his large belly protruding through his too-tight waistcoat, as Lily and Ylana walked through the door. "And Mr Snape too!" he added as his eyes landed on the greasy-haired Slytherin who must have walked in beind them. "My three Potions prodigies! We're being partnered up this term, no, not with your friends," he added as James made moves to sit down next to Sirius. "I have a seating plan for the rest of the year!"

The class, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike, groaned in total harmony at this statement; it was a sentence that all students feared their teachers to say.

"Miss Thomson next to Mr Pettigrew here; Mr Black next to Miss Brown," Sirius made a face as Vixie Brown, a dark-skinned Slytherin known as 'The Ice Queen' sauntered over to him, smirking, "Miss McKinnon with Mr Snape," Marlene raised an eyebrow in distaste. "Mr Lupin with Miss Cotton, Miss Meadowes by Mr Mulciber and Miss Evans with Mr Potter. That will do for now, I think." The Professor concluded while Lily and Dorcas looked at eachother in horror. Dorcas, who was to be sitting by Mulciber, scrunched her face up as she sat down at a desk next to where James was standing; in both of their opinions, Remus and Alice had it easiest, being partnered together. Relucantly, Lily took a seat at a desk to her right, Ylana and Peter on the desk opposite her, and watched James sit down beside her with pained eyes. After he had put his bag underneath his chair, he turned to face the front of the classroom. Looking over slightly, Lily saw Sirius and Vixie glaring at eachother. Immediately, she felt a lot luckier to be sitting next to Potter – she could ended up with one of the Slytherins, and that wouldn't have been good at all.

After everyone had settled down, Professor Slughorn strolled to the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back, and then came to a stop, turning to face them all.

"Now everyone! This lesson, we will be making a Potion just to recap ourselves, and this time you will be working with your partners! So pick any Potion from _Advanced Potion Making_ and off we go! Best pair at the end of the lesson will recieve a small prize!" he announced to the stunned class of seventh-years. There was a moment of silence, and then everybody started moving at once, scraping their chairs back and rushing to the store cupboard for ingredients. Lily sat there and pulled out her old copy of _Advanced Potion Making_ and began flipping through it absent-mindedly.

"So, Potter, what Potion do you want to make?" she asked, turning reluctantly to her partner. James shrugged and took the offered book from Lily and began turning the moist pages, studying titles. He paused on a passed around halfway through the book and looked up.

"How about Sleeping Potion?" he asked. Lily frowned at his choice.

"It's a bit simple though, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but... Okay, don't tell anyone this Evans, but I'm really rather bad at Potions, and the last time I made this... Well... I blew up my cauldron." he admitted, lowering his voice dramatically, looking around them in a paranoid fashion, looking for any eavesdroppers.

Despite his words, Lily started to laugh. "That was _you_? Well, if you really want to make it, I suppose... I have a few tips for making that Potion that will probably improve our mark."

James' face brightened at her words on his decision. "Really?"

"Sure. Now, come on, let's go and get these ingredients." she told him, fully aware that this was the possibly the first conversation they had had without arguing half way through.

Five minutes later, Lily had set James to work cutting up roots and animal intestines while Lily set the fire at the underbelly of her cauldron. So far, they were working well as a team.

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><p><em>(It won't break anything that you are)<em>

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><p>However, across the other side of the dungeon, the same could not be said about another pair. Sirius Black was sat grudgingly next to Vixie Brown, a Slytherin. She was dark-skinned with black hair that, the previous year, had been long and lustrous, but was now cut into a short a-symmetrical style, a long dark fringe falling over the side of her face. Her sharp sky-blue, almost grey, eyes glittered maliciously as she watched Sirius roughly cut up Flobberworms for their Plant Growing Solution with a distinct air of anger and outrage about him. Vixie was shooting evil-looking smiles over at Mulciber every ten minutes, flipping through the instructions book in front of her.<p>

"So, Black," Vixie said suddenly, a sneer evident in her cool voice. "How's mum and dad?"

He paused in his cutting only long enough to send a death glare in her direction. "You'd know, Brown. You hang out with my parents and their little Death Eater friends a lot more than I do."

Vixie let out a short, cold laugh that was more like a cackle than anything else. "Oh, that's right isn't it, Black? You ran away from your parents like a _coward_!"

He slammed the knife down on the table loudly, a muscle quivering in his neck. "I didn't _run away_. And it's really got nothing to do with you."

"Oh, you didn't run away then Black? What do they call 'running away' nowadays then, eh?" she asked, leaning her face into her hand, looking positively gleeful. It was a sickening sight.

All of a sudden, Sirius was standing up pointing the wickedly sharp Potions knife at Vixie, chair and wand lying forgotten on the floor. There was a glimmering fire in his grey eyes that made him look more dangerous than ever. His face was twisted with rage and he looked like he wanted the stab the seventh-year Slytherin more than anything in the world.

"Don't you dare," he warned her in a low voice.

On the other side of the room, three people stood up simultaneously and approached Sirius carefully. The first to reach him, however, was not the students, but Slughorn.

"Mr Black!" he gasped, aghast. "What in the name of Merlin are you doing?"

"Please, Professor, we'll sort him out," came the quiet, yet commanding voice of Ylana Thomson from behind Sirius. Slughorn turned around and stared at one of his most prized students. After a moment of obvious consideration (in which Sirius swore he saw cogs whirring in his Professor's head) and then nodded.

"That... May be best, Miss Thomson. If you and Mr Lupin take him to your Common Room... Calm him down... I might have to speak to your Head of House... Dreadful behaviour, you know..." he muttered, stepping out of their way. Ylana rushed up to her cousin, as did Remus and James.

"C'mon, Padfoot, let's get out of here." Remus muttered.

"Yeah, come on Sirius. Before we all do something stupid." This time it was Ylana who spoke. They stood there for a while, looking worried, saying nothing. In the end, Sirius lowered the knife from a rather wan Vixie, who had shrunken in on herself in fright, and turned to his friends looking like he could breathe fire. He snatched up his wand from the floor and stormed out of the room. After glancing at eachother briefly, Remus hurried after him while Ylana grabbed his bag and put the chair straight and followed them. James, who had been trying to hold Sirius back, turned back towards the rest of the class and walked slowly back to his seat next to Lily.

"Is he going to be alright?" she surprised him by asking in a quiet voice once the class had resumed its usual volume.

He turned to her in shock, absent-mindedly pouring Salamander Blood into the bubbling cauldron. Lily grabbed his hand and put the bottle down, instead replacing it with a carefully measured vial of Ashwinder Ash mixed with Hexium, a highly flammable liquid that had been discovered by Wizards.

"He should be once he's calmed down a bit," James replied, watching Lily stir the Potion with her wand. "Ylana and Remus should be able to do that pretty well. Most likely taken him down to the kitchens, you know how he loves that place – you've caught him sneaking in there more times than I can remember."

Lily nodded and they finished making their Potion in silence. At the end of the hour, Slughorn finally addressed the rest of the class.

"When your Potion is finished, pour some into a vial and write your names and the names of the Potion on the label and then deliver it to my desk. I shall judge them and give the winnders their prize next lesson. After that, you can all pack away and get to dinner." His voice seemed more subdued than usual after the Sirius episode, and he wakled without his usual exhuberance behind his desk collapsed into his large, overstuffed chair. James scooped up some of the Sleeping Potion into a small glass vial and wrote their names on and then delivered it to Slughorn's desk while Lily packed away their things. Five minutes later, they were walking out of the dungeons with Marlene, Peter, Dorcas and Alice. The six friends were quiet on their way up to the Great Hall for dinner, speaking only when necessary, all of them worried about Sirius. When they finally arrived at the Gryffindor table and saw Sirius, Ylana and Remus sitting together talking quietly, it seemed as it the six of them let out a simultaneous relieved breath. They joined their friends on the benches and started to eat, chatting here and there, all just happy to be in eachother's company once again.

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><p><strong>AN:**** Wow, I loved writing this chapter. So much drama... It makes ATTR so rewarding to write. As usual, I apologise for any typos as I have checked through, but am only human and may have missed some. Also, please leave a review. If you can't think of anything to say, leave a song for me to listen to because I love music. **

**-Lauren**


	5. The heart is hard to find

**A/N:**So, not a long wait this time between updates. Might be a wait between this chapter and chapter 6, mainly because of school, so consider yourselves warned. I actually love this chapter aswell, mainly because there's a lot about the Marauders in it and they are freaking fun to write. Enjoy!

**Dedication:**Mainly to the awesome band _Jimmy Eat World_ for providing me with inspiration (especially '23' – it's a beautiful track) and for these awesomers for reviewing:_**LeilaTheRainbowNinja **_(THANKS! And sures, TEH?);_**Absentis Es Dies**_(Thanks again! My OCs have been around for a long time now...);_**Futures'-Past**_(Thanks for your constructive criticism, everything you've pointed out I've looked at and shall change when I have the time);_**Maladict **_(Long winded? Me? Never! *sniggers* But thanks for the reviews, Tom, totally appreciated. Slughorn is possibly the best to write and yes, wan means like pale and scared-looking if I do recall);_**harrypotter554**_(I shall go and look that song up ASAP, thanks for the review!). I owe you all!

**Disclaimer:**I don't own any of the songs in these chapter titles, nor do I own the Potterverse, so don't kill me.

**Chapter Five**

_**The heart is hard to find**_

**-'Heart is Hard to Find', Jimmy Eat World**

After dinner, the Marauders decided to go and take a walk in the grounds while the girls decided to go and get some homework out of the way in the Common Room. They parted at the marble staircase and Sirius led the way over the wide sweeping lawns of the castle grounds, James and Peter close behind him, Remus trailing behind them somewhat wearily, aware that there was only two hours before curfew, and though James was now Head Boy, even he couldn't get all of them out of trouble if they were caught after nine. He could only hope that James had thought to pick up his Invisibility Cloack that morning.

Darkness was falling over Hogwarts, the relatively sunny blue sky slowly giving way to a deep indigo hue that was hovering over the distant mountains. The shadows that the trees gave told the four Marauders that the forbidden forest was just ahead of them, the sweeping motions of the Whomping Willow twisting through the air.

When they got down to the muddy shores of the lake, the four of them sat down out of view of the castle and watched the rippling black water for a few moments, each of them obviously thinking hard.

It was James who broke the silence.

"So," he said, turning to Sirius. "What happened in Potions?"

"Ever heard of a little thing called 'tact', Prongs?" Remus muttered, but the others ignored him.

"I was paired with Brown. That should tell you everything." Sirius growled. Another tense silence fell over the group, adn the others allowed it to continue on; they knew Sirius would tell them when he was ready. "She asked about my parents. She called me a coward for running away. I know that she was just trying to get a rise out of me, but seriously, I just could _not_ take it anymore."

James nodded, knowing more than anyone else of the troubles that his best friend had with his family before he moved in with the Potters.

"So you decided to threaten her with a knife?" he asked, not accusingly, but almost prodding Sirius to keep talking, as if it would take a great weight off his friend's shoulders.

"I just snapped. I had to do something, or I felt like I was going to explode, you know what I mean?" the black-haired Gryffindor responded quickly.

This time, Remus was the one who nodded. "I understand _that_ particular feeling better than you think," he said, somewhat sarcastically. James snorted and Sirius let a half-smile grace his face.

"Granted, it was a pretty damn stupid thing to do, but I could have done a lot worse." Sirius continued.

"What, like stab her rather than just point a Potions knife at her?" Peter asked in a small squeaky voice.

"I was thinking more along the lines of hexing her until she was nothing but a Flobberworm, crawling along the floor for the next few weeks." he amended, this time with a genuine smile on his handsome face, midnight black hair hanging elegantly around his features in a way that the other boys could never manage.

"Well, I must admit Pads, that would have been highly entertaining to watch," James admitted, laughing slightly. The other boys joined in, even Remus, who usually liked to uphold all school rules, even if it meant that he had to ditch his friends every now and again.

_(I can't compete with the clear eyes of strangers)_

Meanwhile, in the Common Room, Lily, Dorcas, Alice and Ylana were sat in the comfy overstuffed armchairs by the dying fire, talking rather seriously about what had just happened in the Potions class. Lily, of course, was worried about the punishment that Sirius was going to get when McGonagall found out what he had done, whereas Ylana was just worried about how her cousin was. They had spent the last ten minutes debating on whether or not to look for him. Ylana and Lily had been doing most of the talking, Dorcas and Alice nodding and humming here and there.

"I seriously thought that he was going to stab that Slytherin girl," Lily said in a shocked voice, shaking her head so that her flame-coloured hair fell into her eyes. She brushed it out again with a pale finger. "I've never seen him that angry before."

"She was goading him," Ylana said in a clipped voice, sitting straighter in her chair, her electric blue eyes narrowed in dislike.

"He shouldn't have risen to it," Lily continued. This time, it wasn't Ylana who spoke.

"Like he's got any chouse?" Alice snorted loudly. "She was sitting there pulling him along, really provoking him. I could hear them from my seat next to Remus."

There was a moment of quiet between the four girls in which they all looked away from eachother's eyes. The fire in front of them crackled joyfully, spitting sparks up the chimney every now and again.

"It begs the question though, doesn't it?" Lily asked timidly, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Dorcas and Alice looked at her questioningly; Ylana looked away into the depths of the flames rising from the burning logs in the fire grate. "What could she have said to make him react so strongly? I mean, we all know how Sirius is, which makes me wonder if she said anything nasty about one of the boys."

"She didn't," Ylana put in suddenly, her eyes angry and her posture stiff. Three sets of eyes snapped to her face. "She was talking about his family."

Alice and Dorcas, who had grown up in Wizarding families, understood immediately what she meant; every person who had a magical bloodline knew how Sirius had run away from home and what his mother had done to him the summer before sixth year.

Lily, however, didn't quite understand.

"I don't get it," she frowned. "Why would that make him angry? I mean, Regulus is in Slytherin, but what else could she say? I can't imagine pointing a knife at Vixie if she had told him he'd be better in Slytherin with his brother."

"His mother and father, Walburga and Orion Black, are very high strung supporters of Voldemort's, and always have been. They've been waiting for someone like him to come along and take the Purebloods away from the Muggleborns and Half-bloods for a while now; in about the first week of the summer holidays before sixth year, Sirius finally stood up to their bullying. He told them that he would never be on Voldemort's side and that they were sick. They kicked him out," she paused for a moment, taking in the horrified expression on Lily's face. "After my dear Aunt Walburga kicked him to within an inch of his life, that is. He sort of collapsed on James' doorstep in the middle of the night and we had to rush him to St Mungo's straight away."

"I never knew that," Lily whispered. Again, silence settled over them. It was broken by Dorcas.

"Shall we go to look for the Marauders? They've been gone for ages." she asked quietly. Ylana sighed deeply, relaxing her posture and leaning back into her overstuffed armchair, pulling her feet underneath her and revelling in the warmth of the fire in front of them.

"No. Wherever they are, they will be there together and they'll always look out for eachother. They'll be back when they've had enough of the cold anyway," she added, smiling.

"That sounds right," Lily agreed sarcastically, snorting. "Well, I'm not going to wait up for them, I'm going to go and get some sleep. You guys coming?" she asked, standing up and stretching like a cat that has been cooped up for too long. Dorcas and Alice nodded fervently, walking over to Lily at the foot of the staircase to the dormitories. Ylana made no moce to join them and it was the absence of the sound of her footsteps that made the others turn around.

"You coming, 'lana?" Alice repeated, stifling a yawn. Ylana shook her head/

"I'm going to stay up and wait for them to come back, just to check that Sirius is alright. Plus I need to talk to them about something important. Just go without me, I'll be up in a bit anyway." she told them with a forced smile. The others nodded unwillingly and travelled up the stairs. Almost as soon as they were gone, the Portrait Hole swung open and the four Marauders staggered in. Ylana raised an eyebrow at them as they dashed towards the fire.

"Bloody cold out there," Sirius muttered through chattering teeth.

"And it's only September!" James complained. "Imagine what that's going to be like in December?"

"Have you been out there all this time?" Ylana asked incredulously, watching Remus sink into a chair, rubbing his almost blue hands together.

"Yup," Peter piped up excitedly from a huddle on the sofa, a blanket drawn around him. "By the lake."

James took the other free chair while Sirius sprawled on the threadbare rug in front of the fireplace. "Did you hear what that Vixie bitch said about Sirius?" James asked Ylana in a low voice. She nodded.

"She was being a real cow. She had no right to say something like that." she answered in a fierce voice.

"We always knew she was a cow," Sirius snarled from the floor. "But there's nothing we can do about it now."

"The hell we can!" James argued, turning his angry hazel eyes on his best friend. "We're going to get revenge!"

"We can't, Prongs," Remus butted in swiftly; it seemed like they'd had this conversation a few times already. "You're _Head Boy_. You'd get in so much trouble that you would never get out of it again."

"As much as I'd like to watch you kick her scrawny arse," Ylana chimed in, "You can't. Remus is right, James, you can't."

James sighed. "I suppose you're right. I just don't want to see her get away with what she's done to Sirius."

"Oh, she won't," Ylana promised with an evil-looking grin suddenly on her face. "After all the times she's taunted us? Nah, I won't let her get away with it."

Comprehension dawned on Sirius, a grin settling onto his own face. "What are you going to do to her?" he asked his cousin slowly.

"You don't need to know, and neither does anyone else. But just remember that if you see Vixie Brown running around Hogwarts in an unfortunate... Ah... _situation_, I'm not behind it." she answered, standing up. "Now if you don't mind, I'm off to be because I'm absolutely _shattered_. Good night."

A chorus of "G'night 'lana!" echoed around the Gryffindor Common Room as Ylana waved to the Marauders as she climbed up the tightly winding staircase towards her dormitory, in which her other friends were already asleep.

As soon as she was out of earshot, James and Remus turned to Sirius; James has a look on his face of excitement and expectation, whereas Remus wore a frown that screamed disappointment, though the corners of his mouth were twitching.

"What's she going to do?" Remus asked warily. Padfoot's grin just got wider.

"Oh, you know Ylana. Probably something absolutely awful that will leave dear old Vixie in a lot of pain and embarrassment, all the while making sure that nothing can be traced back to her." he said nonchalantly.

"I hope it's something good," Jame muttered. The three of them heaved themselves out of their seats (in Sirius' case, off the floor) and approached Peter.

"He's asleep," Remus announced in mild amusement, pokind their smaller friend.

"We'd best not wake him up then," James began, moving towards the staircase. However, a voice with the same volume of a bomb exploding made him jump about a foot in the air.

"WAKE UP!" Sirius yelled into Peter's ear, the latter of which jumping into the air as James had, a look of great shock on his face.

"Pads," Remus said weakly, a hand on his heart, looking as though he might faint.

"We're going to bed," Sirius continued; the small rat-like boy jumped to his feet and followed the other three Marauders up the stairs in the darkness, all of them chuckling at their friend's antics.

Ten minutes later, most of the Gryffindor students of Hogwarts School were peacefully asleep.

_Most of them_. But more on that later.

_(It hard to find the heart sometimes)_

In a Common Room that was much like the Gryffindor version, but in the same sense very different, five seventh-years and one fourth-year were collected around a low coffee table, on which was a long roll of parchment. The words that were shining on it were written in a messy hand and the six students were reading it with apt attention.

The four students were Clayton Mulciber, Evan Rosier, Regulus Black, Severus Snape, Leilani King and Vixie Brown. Mulciber, a thick-set seventh-year, seemed to be the leader of the group with the gaunt Rosier to his right, Snape opposite and, on his left, Vixie Brown. To the left of Vixie sat Leilani, a tall and stunningly pretty seventh-year girl with long blonde hair and large green eyes that made her look like a doe; she was Vixie's best friend - more like a sister, actually – and one was never seen without the other nearby. In truth, Leilani was less outgoing that her dark-haired friend and had only come along that night because her friend was going. Lastly, Regulus Black, so much like his brother Sirius in the looks department, yet so different through his decisions, sat with a big distance between himself and his two neighbours, Leilani and Snape. He was the youngest there and had only been allowed to attend because of his insistance.

"So," Mulciber said aloud finally; his voice was course and made hairs stand up at the back of Leilani's neck. "Malfoy has told the Dark Lord of our wishes to join his ranks-"

Snape interrupted: "Yes, I think we know, Clayton; I do believe that _most_ of us-" A pointed look at Evan. "-can read."

Regulus and Vixie snorted. Indeed, it seemed as though Mulciber had a hard time keeping a smile of his face also.

"Be that as it may," he continued as though nothing had been said. "The Dark Lord wishes to test our loyalty. As it says in Lucius's letter," he picked up the parchment and consulted it. "We are to cast a spell of some sort on a student. He doesn't say which type of spell to cast-"

But once again, he was interrupted and, Merlin, he hated being interrupted.

"Does it really matter?" Rosier asked in a sullen voice, though his eyes were lit up at the thought of hexing a student.

"Of course it matters, Evan." Mulciber's frustration leaked into his tone as he adressed the boy. "The Dark Lord wants us to act _upon his orders_ so that he knows that he can _trust_ us; some random spell will not do. Now, in case Severus is right and you _really_ can't read, Lucius goes on to say," Another consultation of the letter. " 'Await the Dark Lord's instructions, of which I shall deliver to you in person next Hogsmeade weekend'. Do you understand what that means, Rosier?"

Evan folded his arms crossly. "No need to be so condescending," he huffed. Vixie muttered something about wondering if he 'even knows what the word means'.

"So now we know," Regulus pushed, a smile on his young face, his eyes alight.

"So now we know." Mulciber echoed. "And now we know, we can get to bed and meet tomorrow morning, the room behind the tapestry on the fifth floor. Agreed?"

"Agreed," they chorused back, Antonin a little reluctantly.

"Then I bid you all goodnight." Mulciber concluded the meeting and they all rose, parting ways at the landing of the staircase that was flooded with ghostly green light from the underside of the lake. Leilani and Vixie got as far as the doors to the Dormitory stairs together before Vixie broke off. She had a feverish light burning in her dark eyes.

"Vixie?" Leilani questioned. "Aren't you coming to bed?"

Vixie took a step backwards, back towards the Common Room. "No, I need some food. I'll go to the kitchens to get it."

"Are you sure?" Leilani checked with a frown. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, no," Vixie assured her best friend, speaking too quickly for the blonde to be truly comfortable with the answer. "You get some sleep; you'll need to be up early for Mulciber's meeting tomorrow."

There was a moment of silence that hung between them like a heavy tapestry. Finally, Leilani gave in.

"Okay. See you in a bit, then." And with that, Leilani departed up the stairs towards bed. Vixie walked in the opposite direction and out of the Common Room.

It turned out that the five Slytherins that were in bed didn't have time to get to sleep. The silence of Hogwarts was broken by a long, high-pitched and drawn-out scream. In the girl's dormitories in Gryffindor Tower, Lily Evans sat up in bed and was looking around at the beds surrounding her; Alice, Dorcas and Ylana were all sat bold upright too, as was Carrie Williamson and Tamra Borney, the two other seventh-year Gryffindor girls that they shared a dorm with. There was one bed whose occupant was missing, and that girl was-

"Marlene!"

**A/N:** Okay, don't hate me! I needed to throw a cliffy in here. Actually, everything after when the Marauders went to bed was supposed to be in chapter six, but I thought I needed to add this in now. Review, my dear people! Make my week and push my reviews upto 25 if you can!

-Lauren


	6. Days go by, give me a sign

**A/N:** I can't believe that I haven't updated quicker, but I have written five pages on this chapter today, so be thankful. In answer to _**Future's-Past**_, you meet Sebastian Prince today! Not in person, but still. And we have some more Slytherin action in the ending parts of the chapter. Enjoy!

**Dedicated:** To all those wonderfuls out there that reviewed! Thanks: _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_ (Thanks so much! You're always the first to review my new chapters, thanks Twin! And you'll just have to wait and see if your theory is correct!); _**Maladict**_ (Thanks again for all the things-you-like-in-the-chapter list! And yups, I've fixed the error with Dolohov: I did mean to put Rosier, actually, but must have slipped my mind. Ah well! Fixed now!); _**harrypotter554**_ (Thanks for another review! I am aiming to update faster now as I'm a bit unpredictable with updates usually); _**Future's-Past**_ (Yeah, thanks for pointing that out and also for the review!) and _**seafeather-ono**_ (Thanks for all your reviews and love lists! I'm glad someone likes Ylana. I will try and get around to writing my own sorting song, but I'm not so good at writing poetry that rhymes :/.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Potterverse, though I so wish that I did. I do, however, own Ylana and Seb! Yays!

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><p><strong>Chapter Six<strong>

_**Days go by, give me a sign**_

**-'Give Me A Sign', Breaking Benjamin**

If the first exclamation hadn't already woken everyone up, the second did. Lily's eyes widened at the sound of her friend's name being shouted and then she looked between the other six girls in the dormitory and then bolted out of bed faster than a speeding snitch. Everyone else mirrored her, snatching up their wands and hastening out of the room, down the stairs and into their Common Room. They weren't all that surprised to see that the room was packed with other Gryffindors who had been woken by all the noise, but the people that they were looking for weren't easily spotted in a crowd; the four Marauders had the insane ability to blend in very well with those around them at the time, which was how they hadn't achieved all that many detentions for their now, the six seventh-year Gryffindors hated that ability. Finally, Ylana managed to spot James through a gap that had been created when two fourth-years had moved along to another group; Lily, Ylana, Alice and Dorcas hastened towards them while Carrie and Tamra hung back to chat worriedly to some sixth-years.

"James!" Ylana yelled; the bespeckled wizard turned and spotted them. Hurriedly, he gestured for them to come over to the Marauders – they complied quickly.

"What's happened?" Lily demanded as soon as they were close enough to talk.

"No idea," Sirius answered the redhead. He looked more serious than Lily had ever seen him, though judging from the anger that was still present in his grey eyes, she guessed that what had happened earlier hadn't fully left him yet. "You know anything?"

"We woke up from the scream and found that Marlene wasn't in bed," Dorcas explained, looking worried. "And then we heard her name shouted and got worried."

"More or less the same for us, except that Wormtail wasn't in bed." James added. A few years ago, this statement would have confused the girls more than anything else, but after seven years of knowing the Marauders, they had the bunch's nicknames more or less memorised. Ylana looked confused.

"Didn't he go up with you when I left you in the Common Room earlier?" she asked, nonplussed.

"Yeah, which is the weird part; he usually tells us if he's going out." Remus answered, looking grave.

There was a moment of silence between them all, which Lily broke. "We should get going then, James."

"What?" the boy in questioned asked blankly; part of him was shocked that _Lily Evans_ had just used his first name for the first time in seven years.

"Head Boy – Head Girl – duties." she explained slowly, with the air of someone explaining something really rather simple to a person who didn't understand English too well. She pointed to each of their badges in turn to emphasize her words.

"Oh. Right." And with that, the two of them started towards the Portrait Hole, weaving in between the students that were crowding the Common Room.

"Keep us informed," Sirius called after them. James raised a hand to say that he had heard and understood.

The corridors were dark and quiet on the way to Professor McGonagall's office, and once they got there, the room was empty and filled with a darkness that seemed to mock them.

"Right," James muttered, turning away. "Hospital wing."

Ten minutes later, the Head Boy and Girl were striding into the hospital wing, taking in the scene that lay before them: a bed with a blonde girl in Gryffindor robes curled up into an agonized ball, nearly a dozen teachers, including Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore, surrounding the bed and a small and terrified-looking Peter Pettigrew on the bed opposite. James made a beeline to his friend and Lily had no choice but to follow him; she would never be able to break through the shield of teachers around Marlene.

"What happened, Pete? Why're you and Marlene in here at this time of night? Why weren't you in bed like the rest of us? Who-"

"Potter, please! Let him speak!" Lily interrupted sharply; she had been watching Peter's face as he took in James' deluge of questions.

"Of course; sorry Pete, mate." he suddenly agreed, backing off a little, sitting on the chair near the bed. Lily remained standing; she was too keyed up to sit still for any amount of time.

"Well," Peter began in a tremulous voice and seemed on the edge of tears. "I'd gotten hungry just after we'd gone up to the dorm and decided not to wake any of you – everyone was so worked up already over what had happened with Padfoot earlier, I didn't want to disturb anyone – and went down to the kitchens with the-the map."

'_Map_?' Lily thought. _'What map?'_

"Anyway, I'd gotten my food and some pumpkin juice when on the way back up to Gryffindor tower I saw a dark figure just sort of standing over someone else. At first, I thought the person on the floor was asleep, but then I saw that the first person had their wand out and was pointing it at the person on the floor. And then I heard them say an incantation and the person on the floor screamed." At this point, Peter flinched, as though seeing it again was doing him actual physical harm. "From the flash of the spell, I saw who was on the floor and I shouted her name – you know, a sort of reflex – and the person casting the spell just ran off and I made it to Marlene just as she passed out. Professor McGonagall made it to us about a minute after that."

There was a moment then in which the Head Boy and Girl looked at eachother, almost as if willing for it to be untrue, for Marlene not to have been cursed by some 'dark figure'. But if Peter said it was true, then it was.

... Wasn't it?

"Who did this figure look like, Peter?" Lily asked the smaller boy kindly with a half-hearted smile to appear friendly.

"I don't know!" It was let out in a terrified squeak that made Lily and James jump. "It's all I've been asked since we got here, and I don't know! It was too dark!"

Alarmed by his change in mood, Lily quickly changed the subject: "Okay, okay, it doesn't matter; just forget I asked." He nodded, quieter now, and looked over at Marlene.

"What kind of spell was it, Wormtail?" James asked quietly. Despite all the fuss that was going on around Marlene's bed, they all knew that the teachers were listening in.

"Cruciatus Curse," Peter mumbled, his eyes darting around, looking more scared than ever. There was a collecting breath taken in by everyone in the room at the sound of that.

The Cruciatus Curse. The _Cruciatus Curse_. It was an Unforgiveable and the use of it would earn the caster a one-way ticket to Azkaban, the wizard prison.

"Oh Marlene," Lily whispered, looking over at her friend. Almost as if she had heard her friend, Marlene was suddenly roused. She raised her head a few inches from the matress and looked around. Finally, her eyes landed on the redhead.

"Lily!" she breathed hoarsley. "You're here!" And then she reached towards her friend. There were streaks on her face (which was paper white) from her tears, her eyes were rimmed red and her normally perfect blonde hair was messed up from writhing around on the floor.

"Marlene?" Lily asked uncertainly, approaching her slowly. "Are you alright?"

"No." The blonde's voice caught and broke on that single word and Lily hurried the last few steps forward and took her friend's hand.

"You'll be okay, Marlene. Trust me." she murmured and sat down in another chair that was closer to this bed than Peter's. Then she looked to Madam Pomfrey. "Will she be okay?"

"I believe that she will after a few choice Potions and some rest." the Healer told the Head Girl, who nodded. "And Mr Pettigrew, you are free to leave; I can't find anything wrong with you. Be sure to take this Potion for shock," she added kindly, handing over a bright blue Potion to the smaller boy who stood up. James stood too.

"I'd better get back up to Gryffindor Tower and give them a brief catch-up," James said quietly to Lily before coughing and increasing the volume of his voice. "Marlene, would you like me to send anyone else down to sit with you and Lily?"

"Can-can I see Yl-Yl-Ylana?" the blonde hiccuped, turning her face to Madam Pomfrey.

"Of course; Headmaster?"

"I have no objections to Miss Thomson being here, Poppy."

"Well, in that case, I'll see you in the morning. Feel better, Marlene," James told her seriously before walking with Peter out of the hospital wing. As soon as they were gone, the Professors began to disperse also, apart from Professor Dumbledore. He looked upon Marlene with twinkling blue eyes that were the only betrayal of how angry he was that a student had been attacked.

"Miss McKinnon, I must ask you to step into my office tomorrow when you are discharged so that we can have a little chat about what has happened tonight. Do you feel up to it?" he asked the blonde girl gently. Marlene sniffled, wiping away all traces of tears that were still on her face and attempted a fierce look.

"Of course, Professor Dumbledore. I'll be there as soon as I'm discharged." she told him in a determined voice. The absence of the other Professors and the presence of Lily seemed to have brought her back into the present.

Dumbledore smiled at her. "No more bravery than I could expect from you, Miss McKinnon. I will leave you in the company of good friends. Good night." And with that, he swept out of the hospital wing. Barely a minute later, Ylana rushed into the room and hastened over to Marlene and Lily.

"James told me what happened," she told her two friends in a low voice as the other teachers left aswell. "Marlene, I'm so sorry. We just assumed that you'd gone down to the kitchens or were hanging with someone else."

Marlene waved her apology away with a weak hand. Pulling herself into a better position for sitting, she adjusted her hair so that it better resembled its usual neat silkiness as opposed to the birds nest it had been a few minutes earlier.

"I was with Seb, actually." This was said with an odd, guilty kind of glance at Ylana. The latter froze and turned slowly to Marlene.

"Sebastian was with you?"

"Uh, yeah. We were practicing for James. You know how he is – he's put up fliers for Quidditch practice already for Monday and neither of us had done much flying over the holidays..." It seemed to help Marlene to speak about something so frighteningly normal. She looked more composed with every word that was said.

"Oh. That's nice. Well, Seb and I haven't spoken much over the summer... I figured that he and Katia were on holiday or something." Ylana answered in a clipped voice.

"He was; in Egypt."

An awkward silence enveloped the three girls. But there is something to be said about the two that were mentioned.

Sebastian Prince, a tall and well-built Gryffindor seventh-year with black hair that was messy in a way that James Potter liked best, had the best bottle green eyes Ylana had ever seen. They were the first thing about him that you noticed. Sebastian was a keen Quidditch player and was a Chaser for the Gryffindor Team. Ylana, James and Sebastian worked well as a team and it was often Seb who stayed in the Quidditch section of the library for long hours researching complicated new moves and plays for the team to practice. He was kind and loyal and laid back, and these were things that made him such a good person to be friends with. His older sister, Katia, had left Hogwarts a few years previous and was now an Auror; Sebastian and Katia were good friends and close siblings.

"Does he know what happened to you?" Lily asked Marlene hesitantly.

"Not sure," the blonde answered. "He told me to go up before him because he was putting the Quidditch stuff away."

"Oh. " This was all that the redhead said, and a quiet fell in the hospital wing. Somewhere in the next twenty minutes, Madam Pomfrey apprached Marlene and told her to drink a blue Potion to help with shock. Marlene drained the goblet and then lay back onto the matress, looking as though she had been run over by a muscular Quidditch Team.

"Marlene, do you want to see anyone else? I'm sure Madam Pomfrey would let one of the other girls come down to see you." Ylana asked; it looked as though she was ready to bolt. Lily thought that this was a rather strong reaction to whatever Marlene had said about Sebastian. Or, on second thought, maybe it was something to do with the Cruciatus Curse. Everyone in the school, and most of the Wizarding community outside of the worn stone walls too, knew that Ylana's parents and most of her family were Death Eaters.

Marlene looked up at her dark-haired friend with a somewhat wistfull look on her face, as though she didn't want Ylana to go. "No, I'm fine; you go to bed, Ylana, I know you've had a tough day."

With a look of slight relief on her pale face that wasn't very well hidden, Ylana swept out of the room. As the large doors shut with a click behind her, Marlene turned to Lily.

"What did I say?" the blonde asked the redhead.

Lily shrugged, a worried expression on her face. "I don't know, Mar; maybe it was something about the curse. You know how she is about anything that might link back to her family."

Marlene sighed, leaning back on the pillow some more. "You should get to bed too, Lily. I'll be fine here."

"But-"

"Just go, okay?" Marlene interrupted in a voice that sounded as though the very core of her was exhausted.

Lily stood and left the Hospital Wing aswell, leaving Marlene McKinnon in the darkness with nothing but her thoughts for company.

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><p><em>(I'll rise to fall again)<em>

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><p>The Slytherin Common Room was torn between glee and anger that night, both of which were directed at one Vixie Brown. She was sat in the middle of the Common Room, a smarmy look on her face, her arms folded across her chest, but a tight, frightened look in her brown eyes. This was the second time in two days that she had been made to feel this small, and she didn't like it <em>at all<em>.

Her best friend, Leilani King, was sat to her right. Leilani was tall and supermodel thin; her wide and innocent-looking green eyes and mass of light blonde hair coupled together to make her look like she could never do wrong. Her looks alone guaranteed that she would never be suspected for anything; she simply looked too innocent. She was Vixie's best friend in the whole world and the two barely parted.

It was times like this that Vixie was really glad that she had Leilani as a friend.

The majority of Slytherin House were proud of Vixie, proud of what she had done; she had finally succeeded on what her Master had told her to do and now she really _belonged_. Vixie and Bellatrix could be sisters from another life and none of Vixie's housemates would be surprised.

Vixie was torn between two emotions, too, though one of them meant many things. She was proud of herself for finally completing the task that had been given to her, but she also felt scared. She was scared that she would be found out by the teachers and the Ministry of Magic, scared that those stupid yet clever Marauders and their tag-alongs would hurt her and, most importantly, she was scared that her all might not be good enough for Him.

She scratched a spot on her left forearm almost absentmindedly. It itched.

"Vixie, Vixie!" a third year shouted, though he was perched right next to her. "Give us a look, Vixie!"

"Leave her alone," Leilani warned the boy in a quiet yet venomous voice. He backed off for a second but then was back, this time kneeling in front of her.

"Vixie, Vixie-!" he began again, but this time, Vixie had just about had enough. Disentangling herself from where she was more or less huddled on the sofa, she slapped the annoying third year around the face, knocking him to the floor. He scampered away in a crouch towards his friends; the younger Slytherins looked at her with fear while a few of the seventh years looked as though they had wanted to hit him themselves.

"Leave me alone, all of you!" Vixie demanded in her usual icy and imperious voice, but there was no real force behind her words.

The door swung open and a tall, gangly seventh year boy in green and black robes hurried into the room. His black hair hung around his face in a charming sort of way and his olive toned face, handsome though it was, twisted into anger and revulsion when it found Vixie. He practically ran over to her.

"Please tell me it isn't true," he whispered. "Please, Vix."

Vixie forced herself not to step away from his towering form. "Leave me alone, Josh." she said instead and turned away. "I'm going to bed, I've had enough of this-"

His long hands found her wrists and held them tightly; it wasn't an affectionate gesture. It was a movement made in anger. An angry Josiah Thomson was a scary Josiah Thomson.

"You did do it, didn't you?" This time, the question was said with more volume and more conviction. "Merlin, Vixie! How could you be so _stupid_?"

Vixie tried yanking her wrists out of his hold, but it was no use. "Yeah, I did it! Are you happy?" Her voice was louder than usual, as if by talking louder she could stop the fear creeping back in. "Because I am! She deserved it, that sanctimonius little _bitch_!" Vixie spat the words with such venom that Josiah shook his head, in disbelief more than disagreement. "Parading around here like she owns the place – well, she deserved what she got! She deserved it! I wish I could have done more!"

"Vixie, you stupid girl," Josiah whispered. "You don't understand what you've done. The Professors are guessing it was one of us and someone saw you. _Saw_ you, Vixie! They could have seen your face for all we know!" He abruptly let go of her and ran his hands over his face and through his dark shiny hair. "You could get sent to Azkaban for this."

A chill ran through her body at his words. She ignored it and narrowed her eyes at the whole room of silent Slytherin spectators. "The Dark Lord won't let me go to Azkaban," she told Lance in a quiet voice. He immediately froze and then pulled his hands from his hair.

"Shit, Vixie," he breathed. For a moment, he just stood there. For a fraction of a second, Josiah Thomson was at his home in Kent again, watching his parents being Kissed by Dementors in front of him. Then he lurched forward and grabbed Vixie's left arm, pulled her robe sleeve up to her elbow and stared in disbelief at the glowing Dark Mark. The skin around it was red and angry, as if the tattoo was new. He dropped her arm again and backed away quickly. "You've really landed yourself in it this time." And with that, he spun around and ran up to his dormitory. Vixie glared at the students around her.

"What are you looking at?" she demanded. "Go to bed."

The Common Room emptied pretty quickly and then it was just Vixie and Leilani alone on the sofa. Vixie turned to her best friend, practically her sister, and took in the shocked and worried expression on the blonde's face.

"Vix, what have you done?" Leilani whispered, the handful of words battering at Vixie like punches. Every time she blinked and Leilani's face reappeared in her vision was like a stinging slap. With that, Leilani stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Vixie alone in the dark, upset and frightened.

That was the first time in nine years that Vixie Brown cried. It would not be the last.

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><p><strong>AN:** I hope you like it all! My apologies if it's a bit stop-start, I had a two month break between the two halves of this chapter. Review please! I'd love to get to 30!

-Lauren


	7. If you believe what's said in secret

**A/N:** I'm trying to get back into some serious writing now that my English revision & exam is over; I should be able to update in gluts between exams and such. Thanks for sticking with me with this! It's only the second time that I've ever gotten over chapter 6 in any story, apart from in my book. And I'm completely rewriting it now. Ah well.

**Dedication:** Thanks to all of you for reviewing! That's _**seafeather-ono**_ (wow, thanks for the massive love list! The 'squeak' thing was intentional, yes, and I explained in my PM about the whole Josiah/Lance mix-up :s Also, your theories about Peter and the Slytherins amused me. It sounds like a better plot than the one I've got planned, that's for sure LOL. Thanks again for your reviews!), _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_ (it seems that you like Vixie! She is one of my favourites, actually, right now. Josiah is a newer sort of one; I might put him in TEH, actually.) And _**Future's-Past**_ (thanks for all your reviews! Your CC about the name thing has been taken on board and will be considered in future chapters. Thanks for your input and advice!)

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I don't own anything in the Potterverse except for Ylana, Sebastian, Josiah, Vixie and Leilani. This may be sad, but hey, at least they get to stay there. I don't.

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven<strong>

_**If you believe what's said in secret**_

**-'Gloria', Canterbury**

Marlene's conversation with the Headmaster passed by in an agonisingly slow fashion; she sat there for what seemed like hours, retelling the same story over and over again. It felt to her as if she was on a carousel, spinning around on a cycle that she couldn't get off of.

She fidgeted in her chair, first fiddling with the hem of her school cardigan, then straightening out her robes, crossing and uncrossing her legs and glancing out of the windows frequently, half wishing that she could be outside with her friends, but not wanting the risk the fact that she could walk past her attacker and never know about it.

Professor Dumbledore, noticing Marlene's restlessness, released her at twenty past eleven. She hurried from the office quickly, negotiating the winding maze of corridors that was Hogwarts efficiently. She knew that she was supposed to go to Transfiguration, but she didn't feel like she could stand sitting in a classroom surrounded by the people who could have been the one to Crucio her. Instead of taking a turn at the tapestry of Doom the Blisterfull, a particularly angry-looking Goblin, Marlene walked straight ahead slowly, taking her time to get to the Gryffindor Common Room.

Ten minutes later, she found the room mercifully empty. The sixth years that had a free period were all out enjoying the last few rays of truly summery sunshine that 1977 had to offer. Marlene made her slow way up to her dormitory and pushed the door open; she glanced inside the room and caught a glimpse of Wizarding band _'The Seductive Serpents'_s latest record. She knew that there was a Wizarding record player in the Common Room below and made a point to pick the record up. She could guess that it was Alice's, as she was always up on the latest fashions and music. Pulling her school bag onto her shoulder from where it still lay on her bed from the evening before, she exited the dormitory and, when she had entered the Common Room, settled herself into the comfiest armchair by the fire.

Using a Levitating Charm, Marlene floated the record to the record player and when the needle settled on the large round disk, rock music began to echo around the room. Snatches of the lyrics of the various songs floated to Marlene as she attempted to write her Charms essay.

'The Fidelius Charm is possibly the most advanced protection charm that has come of the last two centuries as it uses human mids as opposed to magical vessels...'

'_And when you take my hand, baby, I just can't concentrate; I can't wait for the Dementors to suck the memories from my lifeless soul..._'

Marlene frowned as her focus slipped to the '_Seductive Serpents_' song that was playing, '_Dementor's Kiss (My Lifeless Soul)_', and blinked a few times to clear her mind. She dipped the nib of her handsome Eagle Owl feather quill into the inkpot that was balanced precariously on the arm of the chair and tried again with her essay.

'Similarly, the Muggle Repelling Charm is also beneficial to envoke when in areas where Muggles might be a problem. '_Protego Horriblis_' is another Charm that most campers cast when wild animals are near...'

'_There's no way that I can live without you, baby, I can't wait this out; I can't wait for the Dementors to take it away, take it away, free my lifeless soul..._'

Marlene inadvertently wrote the next line from the chorus of '_Dementor's Kiss (My Lifeless Soul)_' and scratched it out irritably. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to attempt homework while listening to her favourite band's new releases. He threw her quill down and, with her wand, stopped the record player. Sighing, she set her wand down again and shifted in her seat, reading through what she had written so far and then she raised her quill, ready to add more.

'Furthermore, the use of such advanced Charms as the Fidelius Charm requires a lot of magical knowledge and exceptional strength to perform the Charm. The caster must remember to...'

But what the caster must remember to do eluded Marlene's overwrought brain. She finally threw all of her books onto the floor in front of her and curled up into a tiny ball in the armchair.

"I give up!" she huffed and then, for some reason that Marlene couldn't really comprehend, tears began to drip down her cheeks, falling onto the neat red and gold Gryffindor tie at her throat.

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><p><em>(Lying alone feels wrong but it's all for the best)<em>

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><p>In Transfiguration, Lily Evans' eyes kept flickering towards the door. She willed it to open, to admit Marlene to the room, but it stayed firmly shut. It seemed to mock Lily's hope. She felt herself that it was stupid to think that Marlene would want to come back to lessons the day after she had been attacked by an unknown person with an Unforgivable Curse.<p>

Beside Lily sat the dark-haired Dorcas Meaddowes; Dorcas had to fight to keep her attention on Professor McGonagall, who was showing the class how to Transfigure a large monkey into a turtle without an incantation and using will alone. Dorcas was the third best in her year at Transfiguration, coming below James Potter and Sirius Black by mere millimetres. She convinced herself that Marlene's conspicuous absence from their midst was only to be expected and that Marlene _hadn't_ been attacked on the way back from Professor Dumbledore's office. Her worrying wouldn't do anybody any good, least of all Marlene. '_I can check on her at break_,' Dorcas told herself firmly. '_And break is only in twenty minutes._'

To Dorcas' right sat the tiny Alice Prewett. Alice was exuding the air of someone who wanted to escape the room as fast as they possibly could. She glanced around her at her friends and then looked to Professor McGonagall, looked down at her wand clutched in her own hands, and then averted her eyes back to the closed door. She couldn't wait until break when the Gryffindors could go and find Marlene and ask her about what had happened last night when she was attacked. Not in a gossip-y way, not at all like that, but to make sure that they knew all the information so that they could protect themselves and the others in Hogwarts.

Ylana sat at a far-off desk, removed from her usual circle of friends; the mousy-haired Ravenclaw that was sat beside her kept sniffing as though he had a cold and the incessant scratching of his quill as he copied out notes for Full Bodily Transfiguration was making her head spin. She just wanted to escape the tomb that the Transfiguration room had become to her and get some fresh air. In fact, she couldn't wait until she could feel freedom soar through her hair and her fingertips when she had Quidditch training that night with the rest of the Gryffindor team. And she wanted to be as far away from a certain Sebastian Prince as possible.

The Gryffindor girls endured the torturous lesson in silence and when the bell finally rang, it felt like the sound of freedom. The four friends scrambled out of the room as quickly as they could without running and took off towards the Hospital Wing. When they were told by an extremely busy Madam Pomfrey that Marlene had been released earlier in the morning, they changed direction and hurried up to Gryffindor Tower instead. After giving the password to the Fat Lady ('_Dirigible_') the four friends entered the red and gold Common Room and found Marlene curled up in a ball sobbing her heart out, textbooks and random sheets of parchment littered all around the foot of her chair.

Without saying a word, Lily walked over to the blonde and put her arms around her. "It'll be okay," she whispered to her friend, casting a worried look to her other friends. They all understood the meaning of this glance; Marlene never cried.

"Marlene, you need to know that we're here for you, and if you want to talk, we're here for you." Alice blurted out in a garbled rush; it was as if she couldn't hold in her speech any longer.

Ylana frowned. "You said 'we're here for you' twice in that sentence," she informed the shorter girl.

"I don't care!" Alice declared and hurried over to Marlene aswell. Dorcas and Ylana held back, watching as Marlene pulled herself together. She dried her tears with the sleeve of her robes and straightened her uniform before stuffing her work back into her school bag. She sniffed once, twice, three times and patted her hair into something that resembled a mass of golden waves and looked directly at Dorcas.

"Is it Care of Magical Creatures next?" she asked in a thick voice. Dorcas nodded and the two walked out of the Common Room together, leaving Lily and Alice clustered around a now empty armchair. The three girls shared a long look that was heavy with concern and then they grouped together in the middle of the room as younger Gryffindor students began to file in around them.

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><p><em>(Let me in and sail away for you)<em>

* * *

><p>A small and astonishingly ratlike boy hurried through the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, turning corners quickly and keeping his sandy-coloured head down. He didn't meet any of the other student's eyes and felt that if he kept this up, nobody would care to stop him.<p>

Not for the first time in his life, Peter Pettigrew was wrong.

Just as he got to the large oak doors that meant the fresh outdoors air and a quick walk in order to find his friends, Peter was stopped by a tall girl. She had short black hair and coffee-coloured skin with icy brown-grey eyes. Her arms were folded across her chest, her default pose, and she glared down at Peter with double concentrated animosity.

"Ex - Excuse me," Peter stuttered, edging sideways in order to find a way past the Slytherin girl.

"I don't think so," Vixie Brown told him. With no further ado, she gripped the collar of his white shirt and tugged him into a concealed hallway just inside the doors. She didn't let go of him as she spoke; she was determined to make him understand where he stood.

"You saw Marlene McKinnon Cursed last night."

Peter let out an involuntary nod, although Vixie's words were a statement, not a question.

"You need to know this, you snivelling, unworthy piece of shit: the person who cursed McKinnon knows who you are. They know all about you and your little _tricks_ with those idiotic Gryffindors you call 'friends'," Vixie's voice twisted into a sneer as she said the last word. "And they'll know if you tell anyone about who you saw that night. And if you tell, they will kill you and your family. Do you understand me?" She spoke slowly and clearly, showing no emotions at all. This was something that scared Peter the most.

"I - I understand," he muttered, shaking where he stood. He just wanted to get out of there and be around his friends, his friends that were more like big brothers than anything else. They would protect him.

Vixie suddenly showed a disgusted expression as she let go of his shirt. "Don't wet yourself," she told him with distaste, seeming suddenly so like Ylana and Sirius, yet so different to them in the most important ways. She swept out of the concealed hallway, leaving Peter on his own, shaking in the semi-darkness.

So it had been Vixie that had Cursed Marlene, Peter's brain said rationally. He hadn't been sure until that moment. But knowing that Vixie had used the Cruciatus curse on one of his friends didn't make his situation any better, because now Vixie knew that he knew about her (if that even made sense), and that meant that the Slytherin would be personally making Peter's life a living hell. The main reason that he had become part of the Marauders in the first place was that he be protected from people like Vixie Brown.

Peter leaned against the rough stone wall, breathing slowly and deeply, waiting for himself to calm down enough to go and find the other three Marauders. He pushed away from the wall and walked into the packed Entrance Hall. The sunlight that greeted him in the doorway of the front doors seemed to mock his predicament.

* * *

><p><em>(From down here I see the line's looking blurry tonight)<em>

* * *

><p>Remus Lupin wasn't a particularly violent person (apart from once a month), and on the third of September, was sitting in his bed in the Gryffindor Seventh year boys dormitory reading a book about Defence Against the Dark Arts. As many knew at Hogwarts, that night would be the first Full Moon of the school year, and while the Astronomy students were excited about seeing the effects of the Full Moon on the creatures in the Forbidden Forest, Remus found that he could only feel a mixture of dread and morbid anticipation.<p>

The wolf inside of him clawed at his stomach to get out, to escape. Remus squirmed uncomfortably, feeling his breakfast churn inside him; it wasn't all too unusual for him to get sick during the day before his transformation, but no matter how many times it happened, no matter how many times Remus went through the same old routine, he could never get used to how ill it made him feel.

He clenched his hands into fists around the book that he was holding as a painful wrench in his gut claimed him. It was like his body was preparing itself for the transformation by sending the same feelings of being torn apart through his body hours before the sun set.

Breathing deeply, Remus leaned over to his bedside table and downed a small vile of cloudy pea green Potion, grimacing at the vile taste and then gulped down a goblet full of water afterwards to chase the nasty taste away. The Potion was a painkiller that Madam Pomfrey always prescribed for him just before and after the Full Moon to dull the pain that always battered him like punches. It also, thankfully, got rid of the most visible bruises and scratches so that the other students didn't get too suspicious.

The door of the dormitory opened slowly with a creak and three other boys entered the room.

Remus sighed heavily at his three best friends. "Hey guys. Did you get my notes and homework from Transfiguration?"

Sirius mimed being hurt and slammed a hand over his heart, a look of pure horror on his face. "Remy, how could you insult us so?" he asked in a gasp. "When have we ever let you down?"

Remus raised an eyebrow at the long-haired seventeen year-old in front of him. "Well, there was that time in sixth year with the rabbit and the Full Body Bind spell, that detention was particularly nasty. And if you want to go even further back, in third year, you-"

"Yeah, yeah, no need to state them all," Sirius grumbled. "You're making us out to be right awful mates,"

Remus smiled somewhat viciously at his friend while James snorted from his seat on top of a pile of laundry while Peter guffawed loudly, doubling over.

"And while we're on the subject of awful friends," Remus continued. "Don't call me 'Remy'."

"Can't argue with the man, Padfoot," James said, a grin on his face, as he pushed his thin-framed glasses up his nose and ran a hand through his already ruffled hair.

Remus knew what his friends were doing; they were trying to distract him from the fact that the approaching night would bring the part of himself that he hated so much, the wolf inside of him that held all the violence and hatred that he was determined to never let himself show when he was firmly human. For a moment, he felt a little overwhelmed as he looked around him at the three boys who had stuck by him for seven years, even when they knew what he was and what he could do to others. He didn't deserve friends like his, he thought to himself. He must have done something really good to deserve them.

Distantly, the bell rang and James, Sirius and Peter groaned simultaneously, looking more like the brothers they claimed to be than they understood.

"Sorry, Moony, mate," James told Remus. "We're going to have to go to Charms now."

Remus had to work to keep the disappointment off his face; he didn't want his friends to leave him alone now. "Oh, okay. Don't forget to get my homework and notes."

"Yeah, okay, Moony," Sirius agreed sarcastically, rolling his eyes at James who smirked. Peter let out a high-pitched trill of a laugh, but his eyes were slightly too wide and he looked slightly wild.

"I'm serious this time, Padfoot," Remus warned, wagging a finger at his long-haired friend. James groaned as Sirius grinned, baring his teeth like an animal.

"I thought _I_ was Sirius, Moony!" he raged mockingly. "Prongs, he's stolen my identity!"

"Let me correct that statement: I mean it this time, Padfoot!" Remus amended with a small tired smile on his face at his friend's antics. The other three boys tittered as they gathered up their bags and pulled their ties down a bit further, their shirts still untucked rebelliously. They shouted goodbyes as they piled out of the dormitory noisily and clomped down the staircase. Remus smiled for a second, frozen, before the grin slid off his face like mud from tile. He looked down at his book for a moment, eyes unfocused before grimacing at a pain in his stomach.

Yes, Remus Lupin wasn't a particularly violent person (apart from once a month), nor did he hate much, but his life always came down to long, cold nights in the Shrieking Shack. He hated the full moon.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So I hope you liked it and I'm so sorry that it took so long to get posted! Life is hectic at the moment and it might be a while before chapter 8 is up, but rest assured, it will be posted at some point before my birthday (April 14th, if any of you want to wish me a Happy Birthday lol).

-Lauren


	8. This world will never be what I expected

**A/N:** I'm sorry the time between uploads take so long; I have so much going on at the moment between my art teacher being a bitch and trying to get me to do three books and 3 canvases finished yesterday (seriously, she's a slave driver), me arguing with my supposed best friend and another friend being in hospital for reasons unknown, even to him. Life is madness lately, so I apologise for my crappy uploading.

**Dedication:** To _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_ (thank you for the RPing and the emails and twitter chats; you help me to get out of my writers block)

**Disclaimer:** I will never own Harry Potter, no matter how hard I work in life. This fact saddens me.

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight<strong>

_**This world will never be what I expected**_

_**- **_**'Never Too Late', Three Days Grace**

By break time on the third of September, Professor Elizabeth Tindall had already set up an investigation into the curse that had been placed upon Marlene McKinnon. Professor Tindall was a short woman with dark blonde, almost ginger hair styled into a short bob. Her wide face was boyish and she had a scar running the length of one cheek, disappearing into her hairline. Her eyes were stormy blue, both hard and warm, eyes that said Tindall was tough but also a good person to talk to in times of need.

The thing that only a few people knew was that Elizabeth Tindall was a renowned Auror who worked in the Ministry of Magic; her and 'Mad Eye' Moody ran the department. Tindall was used to launching investigations about Unforgivable curses, but never had she thought that she might have to launch one at Hogwarts.

She had managed to talk Professor Dumbledore into letting her use a small office that was barely bigger than a broom closet for her Auror work; she had Summoned a desk and some hard-backed chairs into the tiny room in preparation. Already she had a list of students that she wanted to speak to regarding the attack on Marlene McKinnon.

As she hurried over to the 'office' from her Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Tindall wondered whether or not Marlene herself would be willing to talk to her about what had really happened the previous night.

She opened the door and scribbled a note onto a piece of paper before folding it into a paper aeroplane. She tapped it with her wand and the plane lifted up from her desk to fly out of the room through the open window. She shut the door and settled into the hard chair behind her new desk and waited for her first interviewee to turn up.

* * *

><p><em>( And if I don't belong, who would have guessed it? )<em>

* * *

><p>Dorcas Meadowes was sitting in Care of Magical Creatures next to Marlene; the class had been relocated into an unused downstairs classroom for the day, as they would be studying from a book rather than doing what the Professor thought of as 'practical work'. Drawings of Bowtruckles and Unicorns littered the pages of parchment that were sat in front of the brunette as she attempted to study from her own work for an upcoming test. Through the open window flew a small paper aeroplane which whizzed straight to Professor Colt, a small and weedy man who was deathly afraid of going near any creatures which came above waist height. Professor Colt caught the plane, unfolded it and read it aloud in a squeaky voice.<p>

"Could Miss Meadowes please go to the small office on the third floor? Professor Tindall would like to speak to you." he announced, his small watery blue eyes finding Dorcas easily. She blushed at his gaze, as she always did when somebody (except for her friends and family) stared at her. She stuffed her notes into her bag and stood up, pulling said bag onto her shoulder. She looked down at Marlene who looked lonely on her own; she tried to give her friend what she hoped was a reassuring smile and said "I'll see you at lunch," before exiting the room with the note from Professor Tindall clutched in her hand.

She guessed that the Professor wanted to talk to her about the attack on Marlene that had happened the night before, as she hadn't even had a lesson with Tindall yet, so she had nothing that she could be in trouble for. Sprinting up the staircase, Dorcas wondered whether or not her other friends had been called out of lesson by their new Professor for questioning yet.

It took her fifteen minutes of searching along the third floor corridor to find the office that was mentioned in the note and when Dorcas entered the room, she was surprised at how tiny it was. No wonder none of the other teachers had used it for anything; she had seen broom closets bigger. She hesitated in the doorway as Tindall scribbled something on several separate pieces of parchment before the Professor, without looking up, gestured towards an unoccupied seat in front of the desk. Dorcas shut the door behind her and sat nervously on the edge of the seat nearest to the door, taking in everything around her - the rough bricks, the worn stone floor and the wobbly-looking desk in front of her. Finally, after what felt like an hour, Tindall looked up. She pulled out a fresh roll of parchment, picked up a self-inking quill and poised the nib on the parchment. She tapped the quill with her wand and looked straight at Dorcas.

"Miss Meadowes, my name is Elizabeth Tindall; you may know that I am an Auror at the Ministry of Magic," Tindall paused, watching Dorcas closely. The brunette student nodded her head and spoke quietly.

"I did know that, yes, Professor,"

"I would like to talk to you about a recent incident involving Miss Marlene McKinnon and a person, or persons, unknown. Would that be okay with you, Miss Meadowes?"

Again, Dorcas nodded, feeling stupid. "That would be okay; I'd like to help her."

"Good. I understand that Miss McKinnon is your friend and that some questions might be a little personal, might ask things about her that you might not want to reveal, but I assure you that nothing you say to me will leave this room; no-one else has to know what is said in this... Aah... Meeting." Tindall paused for a moment, staring straight at Dorcas, who went slightly pale at the last comment. The girl's eyes were determined, though, and unafraid, which Tindall liked. These Gryffindors always did make good Aurors.

"The first thing I would like to know is the last time that you saw Miss McKinnon last night," Tindall said. Dorcas thought hard.

"She was with us at dinner, but yesterday Sirius Black had an... Erm... Argument with Vixie Brown in Potions, so the Marauders went off to walk around the grounds for a while so Sirius could cool down and the rest of us went up into the Common Room; Marlene wasn't with us then and I could remember wondering where she was." she told Tindall in a rush.

The Professor frowned, confused. "Who are the Marauders?" she asked Dorcas.

The brunette refrained from laughing, instead smiling briefly. "Oh, it's the nickname for a bunch of four boys in my year in Gryffindor; James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew are what everyone calls the Marauders. They used to pull a load of pranks around the school." Dorcas explained.

"James Potter? As in, Charlus Potter's son?" Tindall asked curiously; Charlus Potter, James' father, had been a very well-known Auror and had been very good at what he did; he had died in a freak Death Eater attack on Potter Manor the year before and his wife, James' mother, had died along with him. James had been devastated and still wasn't right. Dorcas just nodded and Tindall wrote the four boys' names down on the parchment in front of her. She made a gesture for Dorcas to continue in her story.

"So Lily Evans, Alice Cotton, Ylana Thomson and I were sitting in the Common Room just talking for a while before we went to bed. No, wait!" Dorcas said and the quill, which had been writing down everything she said of its own accord, paused. "Ylana stayed up for a little while, waiting for the guys to get in. She spoke to them, I can remember hearing their voices from upstairs before I fell asleep. And then, after I heard Ylana get into bed, I heard a scream. We all woke up suddenly and I can remember Lily looking around the dormitory and seeing Marlene's empty bed. Then Peter shouted Marlene's name and we all went downstairs."

"Who was downstairs, Miss Meadowes?" Tindall asked kindly yet intensely.

"Everyone, the whole House. We found James, Sirius and Remus and Lily and James went off to find out what had happened (they're Head Boy and Head Girl, you know). The rest of us, the Seventh Years, tried to get everyone else back into bed and, at about half past two, we were the only ones left up. James and Peter got back just about then and said that Marlene wanted to see Ylana, so she went. We went back to bed and Lily and Ylana came in at about three. That's all that I remember, anyway." Dorcas finished, blushing at how silly and immature she sounded saying the last sentence, but Tindall obviously didn't care. She was busy reading the notes that her quill had taken and nodded, satisfied.

"If that is all that you can remember of the night, you are free to go back to lesson, Miss Meadowes. I will be calling you back into my office for another meeting soon, after I have gotten the basics of the timeline of the night." the Professor told Dorcas.

"Thank you," Dorcas said for no reason, and stood up. She shut the door behind her and, once she was alone in the corridor, she leaned her back against the wall, her head back, and she breathed deeply. She hoped that she could help find whoever had Cursed Marlene, but the chances of finding the person was, lets face it, pretty low. She knew that Peter had seen the person who had done it, but he hadn't wanted to talk about it all and kept insisting that he hadn't seen their face. After a moment, Dorcas pulled away from the wall, sighed, hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder and set off back towards the classroom that Care of Magical Creatures was in.

* * *

><p><em>( I will not leave alone )<em>

* * *

><p>When the bell for lunchtime rang, Sirius Black jumped up from his seat, threw a hasty grin at James and Peter, two of his three best friends, and the three of the proceeded to hurry through the door. They pushed their way through the sea of students outside their Magical Law classroom towards the Great Hall and, ultimately, food.<p>

The Hall was practically empty when three of the Marauders got there, and they loaded their plates with cottage pie. They had just picked up their knives and forks when Lily, Ylana and Alice entered the Great Hall. The three girls looked serious and were talking quietly on their way to the Gryffindor table; Lily looked worried about something, which wasn't all that unusual, Sirius thought. He looked at his cousin, Ylana, and watched as she nodded her head at something Alice had said and then spoke herself. The other two girls, looking grim, nodded at her. After taking a few more steps, the three girls managed to squeeze onto the benches at the now packed Gryffindor table. Lily took a few ham sandwiches from the platter in front of her, passing a plate of them to Alice, while Ylana mirrored what her cousin had done a few minutes earlier, heaping cottage pie onto her plate. She picked up her fork, pulled out a chunk of pie, and ate it, chewing thoughtfully as Lily leaned over to the black-haired girl.

"Do you think Dorcas had to go to see Professor Tindall like I had to?" she asked Ylana, a half-eaten sandwich in her hand.

Ylana thought about this for a second; Sirius took the opportunity to lean over the table slightly to listen more closely to their conversation while James and Peter chatted happily about Quidditch beside him.

"I think so; she said that one of our friends had told her that you were Head Girl and went to investigate what had happened with James, right? And since neither I nor Alice went to speak to her, I assume that it was Dorcas. I don't think Tindall would have got Mar in so soon after telling Dumbledore what had happened." Ylana told her redheaded friend, who nodded.

"You're right, Ylana. I just can't believe that she'd ask me that," Lily replied, shaking her head.

Curiosity got the better of Sirius. "What did she ask you?" he asked, looking from Lily to Alice to Ylana and then back again.

Surprise showed on Lily's face for a moment; she obviously hadn't realised that he had been eavesdropping on their conversation. "She asked me if I had seen the person who had Cursed Marlene."

Sirius flinched. "If you had seen whoever the hell had done that to her, you'd have said as soon as you saw a member of staff! Why would Tindall think that you had seen it happen and not say anything? McKinnon is one of your best friends and Tindall probably knew that when she asked."

Lily smiled a sad smile at Sirius. "I know; maybe she thought because I was the first person on the scene that I'd know something."

Alice frowned now, an expression that didn't usually flash across her terminally happy face. "But you weren't; Peter was there, he saw the shadow of the person who cursed Marlene, right?"

Sirius glanced over at his two friends to make sure that they hadn't heard what they were talking about; Peter got extremely touchy whenever the subject was broached and James didn't think that talking more about it would help at the moment. They hadn't heard, which was good, Sirius thought. He turned back to the conversation at hand. "He didn't see their face, though; he couldn't identify who it was that Cursed McKinnon."

"Shouldn't Professor Tindall have questioned Peter first then if he had seen the attack?" Ylana asked slowly.

The rest of them pondered that.

"It would've been the thing that I'd have done," Lily admitted.

"Same here," Sirius seconded seriously. "What if... What if she doesn't know?"

"She has to," Alice said immediately. "She's an Auror, she has to know that he saw it happen."

"Unless Dumbledore didn't tell her," Ylana pointed out. "Actually, why would he want an Auror in school anyway? It can't be just to teach, otherwise he would have hired someone who had retired, right? So why employ a famous Auror, someone who runs the whole department, when they're still in a job at the Ministry?"

"Unless..." Lily began slowly but didn't continue.

Sirius decided to prod her along. "Unless?"

"Unless it wasn't his decision. What if the Ministry wanted Tindall in the school to spy on us?"

"No," Alice said immediately. "The Ministry don't have any reason to spy on us,"

"They do now someone's performed an Unforgivable on another student!" Sirius pointed out heatedly.

"No!" Alice argued, face flushing. "The Ministry couldn't have known that this was going to happen when Dumbledore hired Professor Tindall! My dad's in the Minister's office, remember? He told me that Professor Tindall was hired in August, mid-August at that. That was at least two weeks before Mar was attacked!"

"True," Ylana conceded. "That's a good point, Alice. But just having a famous and amazing Auror who _isn't retired yet_ being our DADA teacher when an Unforgivable is performed is a bit of a big coincidence, isn't it?"

A silence fell over the four of them as they considered this. They continued eating as they thought and a few minutes later, the bell rang. Lily, looking supremely flustered, pulled her timetable out of the pocket of her robes and consulted it. Then her face flushed as read as her hair and she looked to Ylana, distracted. "We've got Defence Against the Dark Arts next," was all she said. James and Peter looked up from where they were stuffing their pockets with food to eat during their next lesson.

"We've got that Tindall woman, haven't we?" James asked.

"Yeah," Sirius said darkly and James looked at them, frowning, confused. "I'll just be a second; I need to give some food to Moony. He probably won't eat it, but it'll be there for if he wants anything.

"But you'll be late," Lily reminded him, raising her eyebrows in a disapproving fashion.

"Tell her to consult with McGonagall if you have to, it's not like I'm cutting the whole lesson. I'll just be a few minutes, that's all, Evans," Sirius assured her.

"Whatever," she said and turned. "You're lucky you've got the Head Boy and Head Girl as your friends," she reminded him. "And your cousin is a House Prefect along with another of your best friends," she added after a pointed cough from Ylana.

"Let's just go," Ylana said, pulling on Lily's elbow. "I'll tell Tindall." she assured Sirius, who nodded and put together a small plate of food from the platters that were still on the table.

The Great Hall had cleared pretty quickly, so Sirius grabbed a raspberry turnover half a second before the platter vanished into thin air. He then turned on his heels and made to walk out of the Hall. But before he could exit the Entrance Hall, his younger brother bumped into him, almost knocking the plate in his hands to the floor.

"Watch where you're going," Sirius snarled at Regulus, who curled his lip at his older brother for a moment before letting the smirk slide off his face. He peered around them for a moment before leaning forwards.

Before Sirius could move, Regulus was whispering something in his ear.

"You'll need to look a little closer to home to find out who Cursed McKinnon, brother," he said. Sirius shoved him away from himself and glared at his younger brother disgustedly.

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about, _Reg_, but when I find out... I know it's a filthy #snake who Cursed McKinnon." he growled, taking a step back from the Slytherin.

Regulus smirked. "That's a pretty dangerous thing to say. Keep talking like that, Black, and one day you'll get the attention you crave. But it won't be attention from what you'd consider to be the right people, if you get what I mean." With that, he turned away and stalked towards the dungeons.

Sirius narrowed his eyes, the hands that held the plate of food that he had gathered for Remus shaking. It seemed that he would have to start a little investigation of his own.

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><p><strong>AN:** So I really loved writing this chapter; it was done within an afternoon, which has to be a new record with me for chapters that are more than 1000 words long. I'm not even joking - I can be such a slow writer when NaNoWriMo isn't in town. I've started to implement a little more of my main plot here, I wonder if any of you can see it already. I assure you all that the Slytherins will be back next chapter! I need to do a little more with them and, unlike what I said in my blog, it will be _next_ chapter that will have the action between Sirius, Remus, Leilani and Lily. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

- Lauren


	9. Cross my heart and hope for the end

**A/N:** I'm back! Aren't I a good author? I'm thinking of doing a chapter a week, possibly on Sundays or Saturdays, depending on when I have more time. What say you? Oh, another thing! I'm getting emails like crazy to my phone telling me that people are favouriting and alerting this story, but you guys aren't reviewing! Please review, even if you don't have anything to say about the chapter: just say hi lol. Or you could recommend a song for the title! I could run out, you never know.

**Dedication:** BIG BIG BIG thanks to _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_(thanks for being such a good Twin! I like those parts too lol. Aren't we alike?), _**Future**__**'**__**s-Past**_ (I missed your review from chapter 7 when you didn't put it up straight away. Seriously. Thanks for your comments and yes lol, I've been doing that since chapter 5), and _**KatiePotter **_(wow, you must review like crazy, girl! Thanks for your reviews on this and 'TBOTR', you are awesome!) for reviewing! Next to _**WorldOfDreams**_ and _**Twighlightgirl105**_ for favouriting this story! Please review, you guys!

**Disclaimer:** I own my plot and my OCs, but not the Potterverse. Sob.

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><p><strong>Chapter Nine<strong>

_**Cross my heart and hope for the end**_

**- ****'****Stuck In The Middle****'****, Four Years Strong**

Sirius was five minutes late to Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Professor Tindall didn't seem to mind. Actually, she was talking to Marlene, asking if she was okay. Well, at least she had the heart to ask, Sirius thought. She didn't have much tact when she implied that Lily was covering for the person who had Cursed the blonde.

He slipped into a seat that had been saved for him near the front of the classroom; James was to the left of him. There was an empty seat to his immediate right where Remus would be sitting, and then there was Peter. James had somehow managed to wrangle a seat next to Lily, who didn't seem to be too happy about the whole situation. Sirius suppressed a grin, thinking that he wanted Lily as an ally - he had taken James to the Hospital Wing after being hexed by the redhead enough times to know better than to antagonise her.

The lesson started surprisingly quickly after that; the whole class was used to being lectured by teachers on the first lesson of the year, especially if that teacher was new, but Tindall kept it brief. After mentioning that she was head of the Auror department at the Ministry (James had flinched; his father had been the head of department before he had been killed), Tindall said that the NEWTs would be challenging, but would be no more than that if they practiced regularly and understood everything that was said in lesson. Then they got straight down to it.

"So who here has experience with those who use the Dark Arts?" Tindall asked the class in a business-like fashion. Since Sirius could only see those in front of him and next to him, he couldn't gauge just how many of the whole class raised their hands, but Sirius raised his own immediately. So did James, Marlene and Ylana. Lily placed a comforting hand on Ylana's shoulder; it was tough on her and Sirius to admit that they were related to such Dark Wizards.

Behind him, Sirius heard low laughter. The whole two front rows swivelled in their seats to see Vixie Brown chuckling, her own hand raised. Leilani King, who was sitting one side of Vixie, turned her head away from the dark-haired girl; Josiah Thomson, another Slytherin who was a cousin of Ylana's and, by default, Sirius', shot a look of both warning and disgust at Vixie. His own hand was raised.

"I fail to see what is so funny about Dark Magic, Miss Brown," Tindall commented seriously as the class turned to the front of the classroom. "And I would appreciate if you didn't laugh at such mentions of it."

Everything was silent for a moment, everyone taking in what Tindall had said. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of an Auror, but then again, neither did they want to anger Vixie.

"Now, let us take a look at the amount of people with their hands raised. Surprising, is it not, that so many of you have experiences with the Dark Arts?" Tindall continued as though nothing had happened.

"Not really," Sirius volunteered, deciding that the Professor's question wasn't rhetorical. "Over eighty-three percent of the Magical population have had some sort of experience with the Dark Arts." Lily turned to him, eyebrows raised and mouth open in surprise. "What? I pay attention in Magical Law, you know." he told her with a grin.

"That is true, Mr Black," Tindall conceded. "But for so many students who are underage to raise their hands..." She let her sentence trail off before turning to face the rest of the class. "I am afraid that there will be no practical lesson today," A groan filled the room and Tindall let a small smile grace her hard features. "I apologise. You will instead be writing out a short report on how much you know about Dark Magic; that is, any spells that you know of and their effects, famous users of the Dark Arts and any other facts that you can remember. It doesn't have to be long and detailed - bullet points will do. I just need to gauge how much you each know." With that, she moved around to sit behind her desk. Silence reigned as each student pulled their ink, quills and parchment from their bags. "You can talk, you know. Just don't let the volume get too loud." the Professor added.

Immediately, Lily unscrewed her bottle of ink, dipped the nib of her quill into it and wrote her name and House at the top of her parchment. Sirius and James looked at her expectantly and she stared back at them for a moment, confusion on her face. "What?" she asked after a minute or two of silence.

"Are we working as a group, or what?" Sirius asked with a grin. The redhead sighed and made a gesture with her hand to signify that they would be working as a group.

"Oh good, I know quite a lot about spells that the Auror office deal with..."

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><p><em>( Look under boards that are starting to bend )<em>

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><p>After the bell rang for the end of the lesson, Remus Lupin heaved himself out of bed and stared at the darkness that was falling steadily. For September, the nights were coming in surprisingly quickly. He grabbed some fresh clothes, stuffed them into a canvas bag and pulled it over his shoulder; it was time.<p>

He made his way down to the Hospital Wing alone, meeting few people on his route. He always used the passageways through the school that barely anybody else knew about, so he could almost always ensure that he would not see very many people on the way to wherever he was going. By the time he had gotten down to the Hospital Wing, night had truly fallen and he could hear the distant chatter and clatter from the Great Hall - the smells drifting from within the Hall told Remus that dinner had been served.

Madam Pomfrey greeted him warmly as he settled himself onto the end of an empty bed at the far end of the infirmary; he wanted a quick escape if he needed to get outside fast. He sighed - it was always the same in the few hours before his transformation. The stomach aches, the nausea... No medicine that Madam Pomfrey could give him would work to expel these symptoms.

Finally, it was time. Madam Pomfrey stood and walked with Remus out of the doors of the school and across the pitch black grounds that Remus knew he would see much better with wolf eyes. He stumbled across the grass-covered earth, Madam Pomfrey half pulling him, until he reached the Shrieking Shack. Madam Pomfrey used her wand to levitate a stick, prodded a specific knot with it, and then put her hand on Remus' shoulder.

"Good luck," she said, as she did every full moon. Remus nodded, as _he_ did every full moon. The Healer watched as he slid into the passageway. He slipped and fell into the living room of the shack, his skin twisting, fur bursting through his pores. The room stank of the wolf that was living inside of him.

"Here we go again," he muttered just before his body twisted and his human skin was thrown off.

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><p><em>( Loosen the rope slipping over my head )<em>

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><p>Leilani King stared at the headmaster in horror, her icy blue eyes swimming with tears. "You're joking," she choked out. "Please tell me you're joking,"<p>

Professor Dumbledore looked at the blonde Slytherin girl grimly from over his interlinked fingers. "I am afraid that I am not," he told her seriously. The twinkle that was usually present in his eyes was conspicuous in its absence. "Your parents and younger sister, Cynthia, were involved in the attack on a Muggle residence early this morning. The information that I have gathered is that your parents took your sister along to their... Ahh... Mission for Lord Voldemort. There, they murdered three Muggles. The Order of the Phoenix Apparated to the residence, intending to apprehend your parents and two other Death Eaters that were there, but your parents started a duel." Dumbledore lowered his hands and looked straight at Leilani again. "Your mother killed two Order members. In the midst of the battle, your parents and sister were killed."

Leilani nodded, sobs escaping from her chest. She couldn't believe that her parents and Cynthia were dead.

"I am sorry, Miss King. If you would like some time away from lessons to grieve or to retrieve belongings from your home before the Ministry search it, I would be more than happy to oblige." he told her.

She attempted to pull herself together; mother would not want her to cry. More tears escaped at the thought that she would never see Carolina King again. "I want to get my clothes, if that's okay, Professor." she said in a shaky voice.

"Very well," Dumbledore told her, adjusting his half moon spectacles. "But I am afraid that your friends from your own House will not be able to go with you for security reasons that the Ministry has decreed," he paused for a moment, as if to force himself not to be angry at the Minister. "Though we could arrange for an Auror to accompany you for your safety. Would that be okay, Miss King?"

"That'd be fine," she mumbled, trying to brush tears out of her eyes. "I'd like to go at the weekend though, if that's okay - I'll have more time to gather all of my things."

Dumbledore nodded and bade her goodnight. Leilani took that as her dismissal and exited the office.

All of a sudden, it was like she couldn't breathe. She couldn't stand being inside the castle walls for one more second; so she ran through the deserted corridors until she came to the large oak front doors. Pushing one open (and thanking Merlin that it wasn't already locked), she stumbled down the stone steps and sprinted across the lawn, sobbing. Tears clouded her vision and she didn't have a clue which direction that she was running in, but she didn't care. She just needed to be away from the castle.

She slowed down gradually the nearer she got to the Forbidden Forest, mainly because light in the forest was practically nonexistent. She didn't want to get lost in the Forbidden Forest at this time of night, especially when there was a full moon - there could be Werewolves in there.

She pulled to a stop, breathing heavily, gulping down air from around her with desperation. She was just about to turn around and start walking back towards the castle when she heard movement behind a bunch of trees to her immediate left. She froze, ears straining for more sound. A twig snapped.

'I'm not being a very good Slytherin,' she thought when she turned around to face whatever was behind the trees. 'I'm behaving like a stupid Gryffindor.'

She craned her neck to see through the dense darkness in front of her. Nothing. She let out a breath and made to turn around when a dark brown shape flew at her.

She opened her mouth and let out a scream.

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><p><em>( Either I<em>_'__m free or I__'__m already dead )_

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><p>"Get out!" Lily snapped; a Third Year Hufflepuff girl and a Fifth Year Ravenclaw boy skulked out of a broom closet on the first floor. It was the third time that evening that Lily Evans had thrown the couple out of various broom closets that night. "And if I see you one more time tonight, I'll be putting you in detention until you finish Seventh Year!" she shouted after them as they ran down the stairs, the Hufflepuff giggling as she did. Lily let out an irritated breath and continued down the corridor after shutting the door of the broom closet.<p>

She thought that she'd check outside before she turned in for the night, once again thinking that if _James Potter_ was here with her like he was _supposed to be_, then she wouldn't have to take three hours to patrol the whole school. She narrowed her emerald eyes in an effort to suppress her anger at the Head Boy and instead went to push one of the oak doors open. Her hands were still held out in front of her when she realised that she was pushing on air instead of wood. Now her eyes were narrowed in confusion instead of anger; the door in front of her had already been pushed open.

She slipped through the gap and looked around the dark grounds of the school - nothing. Lily sighed angrily. "I can't believe Mr Filch left the doors open in this day and age," she muttered and turned around. Thoughts of a warm bed and sleep floated through her mind. But then Lily heard something that made her heart stop.

A scream.

Without thinking, she turned around and bolted out of the castle, her wand drawn. 'There goes my nice warm bed,' she thought and pushed her legs to run faster.

She got to the edge of the forest and saw a huge animal hovering over what was obviously a girl, a girl with incredibly blonde hair. She was still screaming in short little bursts, trying to push the creature away from her in vain.

"Stupefy!" Lily shot at the animal, but all she caused it to do was look up and snarl at her. A gasp sounded in Lily's ears and it took her a moment to realise that it was hers: the creature attacking the blonde girl was a Werewolf. Lily hadn't believed that they were really in the forest.

There was a growl that didn't come from the creature and Lily watched as a huge black dog that looked more like a wolf cam bounding out of the forest, a stag beside it. They wrestled the Werewolf away from the girl and back into the forest. The Head Girl tried to move, to take a step backwards, but her legs wouldn't move. It was as if someone had used a Permanent Sticking Charm on the soles of her feet.

"Get her up to the castle," came a gasp from in front of her. The voice that the words belonged to was familiar: Sirius Black's.

"S-Sirius?" Lily exclaimed breathlessly.

"I said get her up to the castle, Evans!" Sirius roared at the redhead. "She's hurt, but I don't think she's been bitten. Just get the two of you out of here!"

"Where the hell did you come from?" Lily demanded, sounding a little more like her old self.

"Don't make me say it again, Lily!" Sirius's words were a threat, but his tone was a plea. "There isn't time, and Prongs would _kill me_ if you got hurt out here."

"_Potter__'__s_ with you?"

"Just _go!_"

Lily lurched forward to grab the girl and saw that it was none other than Leilani King, Vixie Brown's best friend. The Slytherin was a gibbering wreck and Lily was forced to Conjure a floating stretcher to put the blonde on. By the time she turned back to the forest, Sirius was gone, but two objects were floating through the gloom, too things that were all too familiar to Lily.

A pair of hazel eyes. They looked a lot different when a pair of gold glasses weren't covering them.

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><p><em>( So take me over )<em>

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><p>There were fuzzy objects all around Remus Lupin when he finally opened his eyes the next morning. He was in the Hospital Wing, as he always was the morning after his transformation. James and Sirius were in the beds opposite, as they always were the morning after his transformation. And Peter was waiting nervously for them to wake up, as <em>he<em> always was the morning after Remus' transformation. Everything was, for all intensive purposes, as it should have been.

Except that when Remus raised his head to look around for Madam Pomfrey and his painkiller Potion, he spotted Leilani King in the bed to his right and Lily Evans waiting in the chair beside James' bed. Remus froze: this wasn't normal. This wasn't right.

"Lily?" he asked, his voice hoarse and broken - another thing that was as it should have been.

"Remus," Lily said, looking over to her friend.

There was an awkward silence.

"Um... What are you doing here?" Remus asked finally, hoping against hope that Lily hadn't seen him last night.

"I need to talk to Potter," Lily told him, but she said the Head Boy's surname with less hostility than usual. Yet another thing that was out of the ordinary.

"Why?" Remus asked, intrigued. Had Lily and James spoken before the latter had come to Remus?

Lily took a deep breath and came to sit next to Remus' bed. She pulled the chair close and did the cliché look-over-shoulders before she leaned towards him and whispered something into his ear.

"I know that you're a Werewolf, Remus. And I know that a Werewolf tried to attack Leilani King last night."

Remus pulled back swiftly, flinching. "I attacked her?" he asked in a broken voice. Oh Merlin, no, no, no!

"It wasn't you, Remus. It was the wolf inside you. No-one blames you. Besides, she shouldn't have been out in the grounds after hours." Lily said.

"Please say I haven't infected her, Lily," Remus begged. Why hadn't the other Marauders stopped him?

"You didn't," Lily said reassuringly. "Sirius and -" Remus could see the war waging in her emerald green eyes as she fought over whether or not to call the Head Boy by his surname or not. "- James stopped you, she just broke her ankle falling over."

Remus let this sink in for a moment, relief flowing over him like a tsunami. "You were there, weren't you?" he asked quietly. Lily nodded. "You don't have to be my friend anymore, you know; I understand." he added, looking away.

"You're not a Werewolf, Remus." Lily said. At the Werewolf's scoff, she corrected herself. "Not all the time, anyway. You're Remus Lupin and you're kind, smart and I truly think that you are the only person on this earth who can keep those three -" she gestured towards James, Sirius and Peter. "- in line. I'm not going to stop being your friend; you are what you make yourself, and you've made yourself a brilliant person."

There was a noise from one of the beds opposite and the two of them, the Head Girl and the Werewolf Prefect, looked over to see James Potter stirring. He reached over and patted the bedside table, his fingers scuttling over the surface like a crab's legs, and then he found the arm of his gold rimmed glasses. He pulled them on, blinked a few times, and started when he saw the redhead.

"Lily?" he asked, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"

"Let's dispense with the pleasantries," Lily told him, standing up and walking over towards his bed. She didn't speak unkindly. "Were you in the forest last night?"

There was another brief period of silence in which James stared at her.

"Um, no," he said, as though he thought she was asking a stupid question. "Why would I be in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night in September? It's freezing out there."

Lily watched him for a moment as if more time would make him say something else. "Wow. I almost expected you to tell me the truth. I thought we were supposed to be friendly now that we have to work with eachother." With that, she turned around and walked out of the Hospital Wing. She expelled an aura of disappointment.

When she was gone, James turned to Remus. "She saw me," he said, and it was obvious that it wasn't a question.

"I think so; you see, I was in a different body at the time." But the sarcasm was missing from his voice as he spoke.

"Damnit," was all that James said, his curse muffled by he fact that he had buried his face in his hands. His head fell back onto his pillow with a muffled thump.

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><p><strong>AN:** wow, this is a monster of a chapter! It was pretty easy to write, too, and the plot is really taking off now! I feel that I'm not including enough Lily and James, which was what I really wanted to build this story around, and this is a little disappointing, so I decided to add something at the end with the two of them: Lily being disappointed with James is a new thing as she's usually just angry with him - I think that it shows their relationship, so to speak, has evolved. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it! Please review!

- Lauren


	10. And when I get there

**A/N:** I hope this goes okay because I really can't write as James well - I thought that there needed to be some more focus on Lily and James. This chapter has been a MONSTER to write, seriously, even with my current favourite song on replay to inspire me (hint: the chapter title. I do this for every chapter, seriously, I'm a music junkie). I've had such bad writers block on this chapter, and I didn't want to just ditch it, so I've spent my weekend writing out both the main plot and individual chapter plots for this story. I have around 8 pages of notes for this now - this is my third biggest project note-wise. _'The Anna Chronicles: Desperate'_ has been the biggest, with 46 pages of notes, and then _'The Anna Chronicles: Returned'_ with 31 pages. Yay me! Okay, so insane A/N over now!

**Dedication: **My laptop, because it has finally decided to allow my memory stick to link up - I don't have to copy each chapter from my laptop to my desktop anymore! Yays! Also, to _**sea feather-ono**_ (YAY, YOU'RE BACK! I missed your reviews, Elia. Thank you for your love lists also! I shall go review your story now [I was reading it again yesterday]) , _**CLJR **_(Thank you for your review! Yes, it was my sixteenth on the 14th and it was great. I've been editing this chapter for so long, you don't even…) to _**Nithusa**_ (Thanks for your review! You're amazing too!), _**Future's-Past**_ (Wow, you started to do a love list. Thans for such a detailed review friend! That trilogy is amazing, I had the box set for xmas and I love it!), _**KatiePotter**_ (Thanks! That is a relly nice thing to say about my music! Nah, I don't like Ke$ha anymore, in case you didn't already notice lol!) and _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_ (As per usual, your review made my on being able to work the reviews system! Thanks for your love list).

**Disclaimer:** The Potterverse is owned by Jo-Ro. Damnit.

**Chapter Ten**

_**And when I get there it won't be far enough**_

**- 'Renegade', Paramore**

The day's lessons crawled by for James Potter; sitting next to Lily in Defence Against the Dark Arts after her show of obvious disappointment with him from that morning was less than comfortable - every time he tried to speak, she would shake her head and sigh loudly so that the others couldn't hear what he said. He found it a little childish, but knew that he couldn't tell her what had really happened the previous night while she was still ignoring him.

Her actions irritated him; James couldn't help but wish that she could see how much she hurt him. Every time she turned him down, every time they argued was like a slap in the face. Each rejection stung more than the Hexes that she threw at him.

By the time dinner came, James was determined to talk to Lily. He knew that they had patrol together after dinner and wanted to make sure that Lily wasn't ignoring him then.

Somehow, and he didn't know how because the Marauders had left class first, Lily and the other girls were already at the Gryffindor table. There were empty seats next to them where everyone knew the Marauders always sat. James took the opportunity to claim the seat next to Lily's. She looked at him in surprise for a moment before diverting her gaze back to her steak and kidney pie. James checked around him and saw that all their other friends were involved with conversations so he leaned towards Lily.

"Lily, can I talk to you?" he said quietly. She chewed a mouthful of her pie before turning slowly to face James.

"What about, Potter?" She just sounded tired when she spoke to him now, but the use of his surname made him want to flinch.

"I want to tell you that I lied to you earlier. In the Hospital Wing."

She raised a single red eyebrow. "Oh?" She sounded like she already knew the truth.

"Yeah. I was in the forest last night, but it's not what you think. I can't talk about it right now because people will hear, but I can promise that I'll tell you on patrol tonight." he said, knowing full well that it sounded like he was still lying.

"And you're actually going to turn up tonight, are you? Because it took three hours for me to do _our_ job _alone_ last night."

He flinched. "That wasn't my fault; Moony told me that you know about his 'furry little problem', so you should know that I would be with him last night."

"Now see, I _wouldn't_ know that. You know why? Because Werewolves are banned from being around people when they transform for a reason."

Annoyance flared within him at her comment. "Remus is a good person; he can't help what happens to him! He doesn't know what he's doing. Plus, I wasn't a person last night." Crap. He hadn't meant to reveal the last part this early.

Lily did a double take and then shook her head slowly. "I suppose this is what you want to talk to me about on patrol?" she guessed. When James nodded, she mirrored him. "I figured that."

"I'm getting off topic," he admitted. "This isn't what I wanted to talk to you about right now. What I really wanted to say was that I want us to be friends."

"Friends," Lily echoed disbelievingly. "Right,"

"I'm being serious," James insisted. "We're supposed to show the school that we're united and all that, so being friendly towards eachother would be a step towards actually being a good Head Boy and Head Girl."

Lily considered this. "I guess you're right," she conceded. "But I'll admit it, it's going to be hard to be friends with you after hating your guts for six years. You haven't exactly been nice to me, have you, Potter?"

"If we're going to be friends, I'd appreciate it if you called me by my first name like, you know, an ordinary person," James butted in. "Because, in case you haven't noticed, I have already extended the same courtesy to you."

He _had_ done that. Lily nodded half-heartedly.

"It's going to be a hard habit to break, but okay, I guess it's only fair. James." She added the last almost as an afterthought.

A smile lit up his face at the sound of her using his first name for the first time... Well... Ever. "Thanks, Lily."

"Are you going to eat, or keep talking about inconsequential nonsense?" Sirius asked, nudging James in the ribs as he did so to get his attention.

"It's not nonsense," James mumbled, but he did pick up his fork and begin to eat his chicken dinner. Lily tipped her head sideways, looking up at him, a sardonic smile on her face.

After that, the group of Gryffindors, including Remus, who arrived halfway through dinner from the Hospital Wing, ate their way through their dinners and then trudged sleepily towards Gryffindor tower. After giving the Fat Lady the password ("Fortitudo"), everyone but Lily and James began to play a huge game of chess (they divided into teams) in an effort to wake themselves up a little more. The Head Boy and the Head Girl watched as the game unfolded, cheering on the participants as the game got more and more rowdy, attracting the attention of many other Gryffindors around the room. At half past eight, Lily stood up from her perch on the arm of James' chair and turned to look at him; he raised an eyebrow as if to ask 'is it time already?' and Lily sighed, rolled her eyes, smiling. James felt highly honoured - the second time she had smiled at him in all seven years that they had known eachother, and both had been in the last twenty-four hours.

He pulled himself out of his armchair. The two of them bade goodnight to their friends, as they would be staying in the Head's dorm that night, and set out on patrol.

The halls were still buzzing with students trying to get to their Common Rooms before curfew and some of them greeted Lily and James hurriedly as they passed eachother. There was a silence between them that was slightly uncomfortable that had a lot to do with the fact that they had never been forced to spend time in eachother's company alone before. At nine o'clock, when the final bell rang to signify that all students should be in their common rooms, Lily stopped and turned to face James in the hallway of the third floor.

"You said that you'd explain everything when we were on patrol," she reminded him, folding her arms across her chest. He nodded slowly.

"I did say that," he admitted, gesturing forwards with his hand to signify that they should carry on walking. "So you know about Moony's 'furry little problem'?"

"I do now," Lily answered with a wry smile.

"Well, Sirius and I figured out what was wrong with him in first year; he didn't want to tell us. I don't think that he wanted to loose any of his friends. So we spent four years trying to figure out a way to help him through his transformations and, at the end of Fourth Year, Peter thought of it."

"Wait, _Peter _thought of it?" Lily interrupted, one eyebrow raised as she pulled open the door of the nearest broom closet, checking to see whether or not it was empty.

"Peter is good at theory Magic. It's the practice he's not so good at," James told the redhead with a smile. "So anyway, he thought of it, and we agreed to try and figure out how to make it happen. It took us the whole summer and up until Christmas in Fifth Year before we finally managed to get the spell to work."

"Stop!" Lily demanded, both hands up as they ducked into a hidden corridor. "Took you six months to do _what_, exactly?"

"To become Animagi."

The silence was deafening; Lily gaped at James, obviously in shock over his words and his confession.

"You're not on the register," she argued vainly. It was clear that her heart wasn't in it - for once, she couldn't argue with the black-haired boy with the glasses.

He ran a hand through his hair absent-mindedly, mild amusement showing on his face. "We're unregistered, of course. If Dumbledore knew... Hell, if _Minnie_ knew! We'd be decapitated!" The look of horror on his face was so real that Lily automatically raised an eyebrow at him.

"You think Professor McGonagall is scarier than Professor Dumbledore?" She had to ask it.

He looked at her as though he thought she was mad. "Of course," he said as though it was obvious. "Don't you?"

She laughed shortly in disbelief. "Of course you would think that. Of course. You've had more detentions off Professor McGonagall that anyone else in the history of the school, probably,"

"You could check in that book of yours that you like so much," he suggested. "'_A History of Hogwarts'_ or something like that, right?"

"'_Hogwarts: A History_'," she corrected automatically. "Back to the subject at hand... You, Peter and Sirius are... Animagi?"

"Yup," James confirmed cheerfully. "Can you guess what we are?"

"Idiots," she muttered under her breath before clearing her throat and speaking at normal volume again. "You call Remus 'Moony', which I presume has something to do with the fact that he turns into a wolf once every month. That leads me to think that all of your nicknames suggest what animals you turn into..."

"Very good reasoning," James complimented. "Carry on."

"And Peter's 'Wormtail'... A vole?"

James' lips twitched up slightly at the corners. "Close. He's a rat."

"... And Black is obviously that giant, mangy, rabid dog thing - "

" - But we already knew that, so let's skip ahead," James finished for her with an inviting smile. "What am I, young Lily?"

He was quite enjoying this now that he knew Lily wasn't going to explode and fire painful Hexes at him while he ran screaming down the corridor. Of course, the Marauders hadn't told anybody about them being Animagi because no-one would understand the true reasoning behind it - Remus' condition - and besides, the whole school would know within five minutes. Telling Lily, and having her actually playing along, was quite amusing.

She narrowed her emerald eyes, tilted her head to the side and studied the bespeckled wizard in front of her for a moment, deliberating.

"There was a stag there that night," she said slowly, her eyes on his. "And you already admitted to being there last night. Plus, I saw your eyes." She hesitated a second; it was as if she didn't want to say it. "Are you a stag?"

The question was asked to seriously that even James' smile dripped off his face. He nodded slowly. Part of him wanted to savour the moment, the two of them staring so intensely at eachother, but the part of James that held everything it meant to be a Marauder wanted desperately to lighten the mood. That part of him won.

"The others try to decorate my antlers every Christmas," he told her in mock horror and sorrow.

Lily bit back a burst of laughter and instead settled for replying. "Some fairy lights wouldn't go amiss."

James chuckled and opened his mouth, about to say something else, when a scream interrupted him.

"Oh, for Merlin's _sake_!" Lily shouted in frustration. "Not _again_! All you seem to hear around this place now is screaming!" She began to hurry down the corridor towards the source of the screaming, but James stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"Wait a second," he told her, fishing out a piece of parchment from his pocket. He tapped it with his wand and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." From the point where the tip of his wand touched the parchment, ink swept across the cream paper, spanning into all four corners, creating an intricate web of spidery lines. Lily, who had been watching impatiently, felt her mouth open in alarm and awe as she watched the most detailed map of Hogwarts spread out in front of her.

"No-one should be out of bed but us and the other people who are on patrol," he said, eyes jumping from one part of the map to another, expertly folding various flaps down or opening them to reveal more of the corridors underneath. "And we know who should be on patrol right now," he added, fingers flattening out a tiny square which showed a small, stationary dot. "So it should be pretty easy to find out who's been attacked."

Lily had had enough. "Okay, what the hell is that?" she demanded, pointing angrily towards the map. "And secondly, how do we know they've been attacked?"

James looked down at her patiently. "This is the Marauders Map. We made it a few years ago, it shows everything and everyone within the Hogwarts grounds. Secondly, we have to assume that. I mean, two different people have screamed since we came back to school, and both of those were being hurt in some way or another. My dad - " he cut off, his voice suddenly lost. He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then continued. "My dad always said that to be a good Auror, you need to assume the worst has happened to be able to pursue the correct course of action." He stopped, waiting for Lily to respond; to his surprise, she didn't say a word, just studying the map between them.

"Ellen Lockford," she read from the tiny label beside the dot. "She isn't meant to be out. It's her, it's got to be. But where is she?"

James returned his gaze to the parchment in front of him and folded the edges of the square out. They both peered at the name of the corridor that Ellen Lockford's dot was situated on.

_The fifth floor corridor._

_( I'm a renegade, it's in my blood )_

Evan Rosier never thought his triumphant grin would disappear; he was hailed as a hero in the Slytherin Common Room that night. The memory of hiding in the dark, waiting for that dim-witted blonde Ravenclaw, Ellen Something-or-other in the fifth floor corridor, would always stay with him. The feeling of extending his arm, wand clutched in his right hand, and shooting the Cruciatus Curse at her would be something that he would never be able to get enough of. He had focused six years worth of hatred at her when he had performed that Curse, six years of hating what the stupid Mudblood-loving Ministry had done to the Wizarding world; she felt his resentment in the form of absolute agony. He stifled a laugh at that.

Vixie Brown, the first person in the House who had performed an Unforgivable on another student, was sat on the sidelines of the euphoria. Evan watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her default expression (anger, condescension and a sneer to match) was firmly in place on her face, but her eyes showed an emptiness that Evan didn't like the look of. He had no idea what was missing, but there was something wrong with the girl.

Evan turned his head and, sure enough, found Leilani King and Josiah Thomson sat together on the opposite side of the Common Room. Josiah had an arm around Leilani's shoulders and he seemed to be comforting her. From across the room, Evan noticed Vixie's dark, spiteful eyes narrow at the sight. So that was it, then, Evan thought. She's jealous of Leilani. She fancies Thomson and she wants him all to herself.

Clayton Mulciber broke through the wildly cheering crowd to clap a celebratory hand on Evan's shoulder. A proud grin dominated his features as he congratulated Evan.

"Well done!" He extended his hand and Evan, feeling foolish, shook it. "Welcome to the team," Mulciber added, clapping the slimmer boy on the shoulder a few more times before weaving off through the crowd again.

Evan put his hands up, a placating smile on his face, and attempted to follow Mulciber; he had had an incredibly long day, what with planning the whole night out in advance, and just wanted to go to bed and get some sleep.

"Let the man through," a loud and demanding voice demanded from behind him. He spun around so quickly that his surroundings were a whirl of colour for a moment before being able to focus on the person who had spoken.

"He's had a long day and, believe me, that Curse takes a lot out of you." Vixie Brown added onto her previous sentence, allowing Evan a brief, albeit very icy, smile before folding her arms over her chest and glaring at the other students until they parted like the red sea to let him through.

She stalked towards him, stopping for a second beside him to say, "Try some Dittany on your Mark," before walking off again. He froze for a second (he hadn't even thought to look at his new Dark Mark) before putting on another smile and hurrying through the gap made for him.

As the darkness closed over his head when he finally crawled into his four-poster, Evan wondered grimly if Vixie Brown was the ice queen that she always made out to be.

**A/N:** So there we go. I ended it too early (at the end of the first section) and had no idea what to write to make my word count go up, so I decided to go with some Slytherin action there. It adds to some of my future plot anyway, so it all worked out fine! Please review some more, I love reading them and they make me a very happy writer. Oh, and feel free to wish me a happy sixteenth birthday (FYI it's on the 14th April)!

- Lauren


	11. We the people fight for our existence

**A/N: **So it has taken me SO LONG to write this chapter. I'm not really confident with it because I'm still half dead from school. Exam season is just coming to an end and I have literally almost died from exhaustion. I have had SO MANY PANIC ATTACKS I cannot even count them. Three doctors and a pack of Kalms tablets later, I'm relatively fine, thank Merlin. But this should be a good enough excuse as to why this chapter hasn't been up sooner. Sorry, guys! I'll be better at writing these up now because I have my last exam on 20th June (Biology. Meh) and then two months off before I start the big college. Wutwut!

**Dedication:** First, to _**Maladict**_ (don't judge, I can't proofread my own stuff very well! Plus, the chapters get better lol!), _**seafeather-ono**_ (sorry for not updating sooner! Your love lists make me laugh, also), _**CLJR**_ (I'm English, so technically, we can't take a driving test until we're seventeen, but if I want to, I can get my provisional licence now! Thanks for the review!), _**Nithusa**_ (thanks! I sure hope it is…), _**KatiePotter**_ (I KNOW! NO TYPOS! :O I've proofread briefly on this chapter, but you know me… I'm lazy when it comes to editing my own stuff… So thanks!) and _**LeilaTheRainbowNinja**_ (yes, the vole scene made a comeback! Yays! Now, get your butt on 'the cornucopia' and get Keety interacting some more. Don't make me come over there!). Thanks a lot guys, you don't know how much I appreciate your reviews and birthday wishes!

**Disclaimer:** I, unfortunately, don't own the Potterverse. I wish I did, though. I also don't own the Quidditch team the 'Wigtown Wanderers'; I do own a copy of J. 's 'Quidditch Through The Ages' and, yes, the team is in there if you turn to page 37. That is all.

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven<strong>

_**We the people fight for our existence**_

**- 'Little By Little', Oasis**

Lily Evans was exhausted; she has spent the better part of three hours sat in Professor Dumbledore's office, discussing what had happened that night. She didn't know how many times that she had relayed the night, omitting the part about the Marauders' Map; one look at James told her that he didn't want anything to be said about it.

"Go over it again," Professor Tindall asked, various sheets of parchment with cluttered handwriting on and bits of broken quills strewn around her, like she was at the centre of some invisible tornado.

Even Lily, who never answered teachers back, who always did the right thing and was top of her year, felt the need to moan a little now. "Do we have to?"

"Start from when you began your patrol," Tindall insisted, dipping her sixth quill of the night into a pot of dark green ink. The nib was poised a few millimetres above the parchment. A drop of that green ink threatened to fall onto the empty paper; Tindall rolled the quill between her fingers so that it didn't fall.

"Okay," James began, noticing Lily's exhaustion. "We left Gryffindor Common Room before curfew. We passed a few people and then we were alone on the third floor corridor."

"Are you sure that you were alone? What were you doing?" Tindall pressed, scribbling frantically.

"We were just talking," James said firmly. "About... The Charms homework."

"And then?" Tindall asked, looking up at the two of them. "What happened then?"

"We heard a scream," Lily cut in, feeling like she had to relieve James of talking. "We didn't get there in time to see who it was that had Cursed Ellen, but-"

"You could have if you had hurried. What took you so long?" Tindall demanded, pausing in her writing.

"We couldn't get there straight away, obviously," Lily said. She was treading on thin ice, being so condescending to a fully fledged Auror and teacher, but she couldn't tell them about the Marauders' Map. She had the feeling that the staff wouldn't like the Map at all. "We had to determine where about the scream was coming from before we ran blindly around the castle."

"Okay," Tindall admitted. "That's true. But one of you stopped the Cruciatus Curse and the effect that it was having on Miss Lockford. Which of you did that, or did it fade on its own?"

"That was James," Lily said immediately, glancing over at him. He had a bemused look on his face. For the first time, Lily felt guilty - she had obviously never paid him a compliment before and he couldn't believe it. "I asked why we should just assume that someone was being attacked while we were heading towards where we found Ellen and he said that you always have to assume that the worst has happened so that you can pursue the correct action. When we found Ellen, he just jumped into action while I was in shock, or something. He muttered an incantation and then she just... Lay still."

"What spell did you perform, Mr Potter?" Professor Dumbledore asked James seriously. His blue eyes were twinkling with intrigue.

"I said 'finite incantatum' and then Banished the Curse from her body. It took a bit of concentration, but I guess that I was pumped full of adrenaline or something." James was actually being modest, Lily thought, bemused. Well, this was a first.

Professor Dumbledore looked at the two of them, scrutinising them over the top of his half moon glasses as he had with Leilani the previous night.

"It is late and I presume that you would like to go back to your friends and discuss what has happened tonight. However, I must advise you to be extremely cautious in what you tell them: I have no doubts that they would tell anybody else about tonight's happenings, but please do be careful of who may be listening into your conversations from now on. You know how the students are at this school... The best-kept secrets at Hogwarts are the ones that the whole school knows."

Lily and James nodded at the headmaster. "Okay, Professor, we'll be careful," James promised, holding out a hand to pull Lily from her chair. Together, the Head Boy and Head Girl walked from the headmaster's office and through the halls of Hogwarts. The suits of armour creaked as the moved themselves around to see who was walking past them. James ducked through a tapestry and Lily followed hesitantly, still nervous about using James Potter's shortcuts.

They got to the Gryffindor Common Room within ten minutes and found all their friends sitting around the fire, talking seriously, looking extremely worried. As soon as the two students walked in, Marlene and Alice jumped up. They hurried over and the two girls engulfed Lily in what Sirius always described as a bear hug.

"We were so worried, Lily!" Alice squealed. "We heard that there had been another attack and we didn't know what was going on. I mean, it could happen to anybody." Alice said earnestly. Marlene went stiff and turned away, sitting down next to Ylana, who hadn't moved at all, but looked relieved that James and Lily were back.

Alice seemed to notice Marlene's distress, as her face immediately looked apologetic. "Oh, Marlene, I'm sorry!" she cried, eyes filling with tears. "You know I didn't mean it like that,"

"It's okay, Al," Marlene said in an even voice, smiling a little. It didn't truly reach her eyes. She turned to Lily and James. "We're all just glad that you guys weren't caught up in it."

"They were," Sirius said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. He had spent the whole time that Alice was overreacting watching his best friend. "Right, James?"

Everyone went silent. Ylana glanced at Sirius before turning to stare at James aswell. Lily

recalled that Ylana was Sirius' cousin, and had therefore been friends with James a lot longer than she had been friends with Lily.

James nodded beside her, the dying firelight glinting off of the lenses in his glasses. "We were on patrol and we heard someone screaming, so we took out the map and found Ellen Lockford lying there on the floor of the fifth floor corridor, obviously under the influence of the Cruciatus Curse. I managed to get it off her somehow and then we hauled her to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey started to get her better while Lily and I went to talk to Dumbledore and Tindall."

Alice clapped her hands to her mouth while Peter squeaked and jumped. Marlene's eyes fluttered closed and she looked pained while Remus shook his head slowly. Sirius and Ylana looked at one another briefly. Lily caught it, but wasn't sure that anyone else had; she added a mental note to speak to the two cousins later about it.

There was a sound of feet on the staircase, and everyone whipped around just in time to see a messy-haired seventh year boy appear at the foot of the stairs. His hair was black and he had a serious bed head, emerald green eyes that were lighter than Lily's by a few shades and pale skin. He looked to be around the same height as James and Sirius and muscles were visible through the thin fabric of his Wigtown Wanderers pyjamas.

"What's going on?" he asked sleepily, rubbing a hand through his hair, yawning.

"Come and sit down, Seb," Remus invited, gesturing to a pile of pillows that had been discarded onto the floor. The boy, Seb, did so, collapsing onto the floor, stifling another yawn.

"Someone else has been attacked, Sebastian," Ylana informed him, poking at the flames in the grate with the tip of her wand; they sprang up again, a little brighter and warmer than they had been before. "Ellen Lockford, do you remember her? She used to be in our Charms before she failed out of it at OWL level,"

"Merlin, yeah," Sebastian replied. "Was it the ones who got Mar, d'you reckon?"

"We think so, yeah," Lily answered, perching on the arm of the sofa nearest to her, the one that the girls were sat on. "It was the Cruciatus Curse again, at least. We didn't get to see who it was that cast the Curse, but Dumbledore's got Tindall involved big time now. It wouldn't surprise me if she got some of her Auror buddies from the Department involved next, actually."

"Trust me, if Tindall's done that, the rest of the Wizarding world will think there's an all-out war going on out here. If she's going to involve more Aurors, it'll be done so that nobody outside of the school will know about it." James shared, looking and sounding more serious than Lily had ever seen him. Sirius nodded as if he knew exactly what James was trying to get at.

"That could also be because he doesn't want whoever is telling these people to Curse students to find out that he's onto them." Marlene ventured. "I've heard rumours about this guy who's been abducting Muggles and Muggle borns from all over the place. Do you think it could be him?"

"What, you mean this Lord Voldemort guy?" Alice asked, reaching into her bag, which was at the side of the sofa still. She pulled out a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ and showed it to the others. On the front was a large picture of a green, eerie skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. The sign was hovering over a building, which had purple floating tape around it, bearing the silver letters 'MoM: A. DEPT' - 'Ministry of Magic: Aurors Department'. The headline said 'Lord Voldemort strikes Muggle home in Herefordshire'

"It could be," Ylana admitted. "And Dumbledore could have told Tindall to keep the whole Auror situation on the down low because he doesn't want this Lord Voldemort to know, but if that was the case - and Voldemort _is_ the one telling whoever it is to Curse students - wouldn't he already know?" she asked, blue eyes flickering around at the faces of her friends. "Because if it's students who are Cursing people around here, then Voldemort's already got spies inside Hogwarts. And if he's already got spies..."

"Then he already knows what Tindall's doing." Lily finished Ylana's sentence grimly.

"Do you remember what we were talking about at dinner the other day?" Sirius asked suddenly, appealing to Lily, Ylana and Alice. The others looked between the four Gryffindors curiously.

Lily nodded slowly. "Have you thought of something else?" she asked Sirius, who shrugged.

"It's just a thought, but-" he began but Remus interrupted him.

"Hang on," he demanded in that calm, quiet, thoughtful way of his. "What were you talking about?"

"Just about why Tindall's at the school in the first place," Ylana explained after a second of hesitation; she didn't feel that it was a good idea to mention that they had suspected Peter of knowing more than he was letting on. Or maybe that was just her. "Isn't a bit fishy that Dumbledore hired Tindall in the middle of August, and she just happens to be a working Auror that's at the top of her profession, when we've had two people be attacked with the Cruciatus Curse already and it's still the first week of term?" she asked the others in one breath. James frowned.

"It's a bit suspicious," he said slowly. "But... Dumbledore wouldn't know anything about this beforehand and not try to stop it, would he?"

Alice, Ylana, Lily and Sirius looked at one another. They hadn't thought of that scenario.

"What if he knew about it before he hired Tindall and tried his best to stop it from happening, but what he tried didn't work?" Peter put in timidly, making his presence known for the first time that night.

"Nothing's changed with the school itself, though," Sebastian argued. "He hasn't put in any special measures like different curfews,"

"That we know of," James added darkly. "He's the most powerful man on the planet; you can't tell me that he can't do magic that nobody else can detect, because he's done it with Hogwarts many times over."

Marlene glanced out of the windows and saw a tinge of pink along the ridge of the distant mountains. "Guys, it's nearly morning," she pointed out wearily. "We should get some sleep; we can discuss this more in the morning, after all."

There was a dull sound of assent as everyone pulled themselves up. The girls bade everyone goodnight and walked away. They didn't notice Ylana's absence. She remained behind with the Marauders, Lily and Sebastian, hesitating.

"What is it, 'lana?" Lily asked, curious.

"I need to speak to Sirius," Ylana replied.

"Listen, if this is about that revenge that you swore on Vixie, this isn't a good time," Remus pointed out, frowning. Ylana shook her head, smiling slightly.

"This isn't about that. I just need to speak to my cousin. Is that alright with you, Sirius?" she asked. He frowned, confused, but nodded anyway.

"Well... Okay, then. We're going to go over to the Head's Common Room and get some rest," Lily said. "You guys better not go out of Gryffindor tower, or I'll give you a detention." she warned them before James rolled his eyes and threw the Invisibility Cloak over the two of them, leading Lily out of the portrait hole and into the corridor beyond. Remus, Sebastian and Peter glanced at Ylana and Sirius before muttering a goodnight and walking up the staircase towards their dormitory. As soon as they were gone, Sirius turned to Ylana.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" he asked innocently. Ylana wasn't buying it.

"You know what." she said flatly. "The family. You know what they're like; they'll be in on this, Sirius."

Her cousin's grey eyes hardened. "And what do you expect me to do, Ylana?" he demanded. "I can't just walk up to my _mother_ and say: 'hi mom, sorry I've been a traitor and all, but do you know if some of our relatives has been Cursing Hogwarts students?'!"

"I know that," Ylana snapped, then took a deep breath to control her anger at her cousin. "It's not just that our dear relatives are probably involved. They'll come for us too."

Sirius clenched his fists, looking like he was going to punch something. "I won't do anything that they tell me to do." he said through gritted teeth.

"But me... I'm in deep, Sirius, deep." Ylana whispered. "There's only so many times that you can say no."

Sirius grabbed Ylana by the shoulders and bent his head until he could meet her eyes. "You are _not_ in too deep, Ylana Thomson. Don't you dare give into them, Ylana, you can't. They're on the wrong side of this war, and we are on the right side. You need to remember that."

"There's something else you're not telling me," she said, suspicious. "I know you. What is it?"

Sirius sighed. "I ran into Regulus after the conversation we had at lunch the other day, that's all. He said that I needed to look closer to home if I wanted to find out who had Cursed Marlene." He then looked around like he had only just noticed something. "Where's Dorcas been, by the way? She's usually always hanging out with us, right?"

Ylana grimaced. "Yeah, Dorcas wasn't feeling well, so I told her to go to bed early. You know how it is."

Sirius backed away jokingly, hands raised. "Okay, point taken. But what do you think about what Reg said?"

Ylana thought hard for a moment. "Maybe about Peter being the first on the scene? I don't know, Sirius, I honestly think that he was just trying to scare you."

"But how would he even know Peter was the one to find Marlene in the first place?" he pressed. "Dumbledore didn't tell anybody, nobody else but us knows that!"

"I don't know!" Ylana exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. She began to walk back towards the staircase, talking over her shoulder to her cousin. "I'm going to bed, and you'd better do the same. Seriously, just ignore what Regulus says to you, he's just the same as the rest of them. Goodnight."

"Night," Sirius muttered as he was left standing there in the middle of the Gryffindor Common Room, alone. He didn't believe for one minute that Regulus was just trying to rile him up; the younger Black brother knew something, and Sirius was determined to find out what.

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><p><em>( We don't claim to be perfect, but we're free )<em>

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><p>Elizabeth Tindall was sat in her office, pouring over her notes on the Cursings that had happened recently at Hogwarts. She loved a challenge, and this was exactly what the term had been so far. The lanterns, which she had lit with her wand as soon as she had got back from the Headmaster's office a few hours previous, were flickering low, distracting her from her work, but Tindall didn't want to look away from the notes in case she missed something. She waved her wand vaguely over her shoulder, in the general direction of the lights, and missed. Shrugging, she turned a sheet of parchment over and continued to read.<p>

Her mind turned as she skimmed through the transcript in front of her; it had come from her interview with Dorcas Meddowes. She needed to speak to more people, she decided, more of McKinnon's friends. And then there was the attack on Ellen Lockford that she had to deal with... She had spoken to a few of the other teachers, and none of them could remember seeing anybody who went around with the girl. She just seemed to be one of those people who didn't have many friends. That wasn't particularly good with her investigation, but there would be people who knew her, even if they weren't friends with her.

She grabbed a quill, a pot of ink and a clean sheet of parchment and began to write.

_PROPOSED INTERVIEWS_

_James Potter_

_Sirius Black_

_Remus Lupin_

_Peter Pettigrew__ - need to see URGENTLY_

_Ylana Thomson_

_Alice Cotton_

_Sebastian Prince_

_Marlene McKinnon_

She stared at the list for a moment before yawning. She really did need some sleep, and now that she knew exactly what she was going to do, she felt that she could truly rest a lot easier. She pushed her chair back and stood up, leaving her parchment where it was, scattered all over the table, and double checked that the doors and windows were all locked (she didn't want anybody to get in and see, or even possibly steal, her investigation notes) before she started walking towards the door that hid her bedroom. She paused at the door, pointing her wand back into the room, and whispered, "Nox."

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><p><strong>AN:** So, there we go. I didn't get as far in as I wanted to (or as planned, should I say), but there's still enough here to further my plot. A request of you awesome dudes: can anyone guess what Ylana's little secret is? Feel free to try your hardest to find out. Leila, I ban you from telling any of them! Review!

- Lauren


	12. IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTE! PLEASE READ!

First of all guys, I am so sorry that this hasn't been updated for so long. Life my end has been frantic, as in A Levels, A Level English exams and essays everywhere, nervous breakdowns and now my dad has a really badly broken arm. He fell on a roadworks sign that hadn't been weighted down with sandbags and busted himself up pretty bad - he broke the two bomes that connect to his elbow in his right arm, along with basically shattering the elbow joint itself. I was woken at 5am yesterday morning to my mom screaming his name out. We both thought he was dead. It turned out that the agony he was in caused him to fit and we had to call out ambulances. His emergency surgery is scheduled for tomorrow (which is really today as its 2am as I'm writing this) in the morning . I hope you all understand why I am taking a little break right now. Thanks for your continued support and I hope your 2013 is going better than my family's.

-Lauren 


	13. In your darkest time, it's just enough

**A/N:** Wow, guys, it's been so long since I actually posted a chapter up on here! Now that I am fighting through the writers block, my outlook on ATTR is a lot brighter! As for the authors note that I posted up on here last, my dad is doing okay now. He will be in a cast for another month or so, and is off work for a further 3 weeks, but he's not feeling too bad right now. Thanks to my friends for your continued support. Also, on another note, CAN YOU BELIEVE ATTR TURNED 2 ON 19TH OF SEPTEMBER?! HOW FREAKING CRAZY IS THAT?! Thank you all for reading, faving, alerting, reviewing, sharing etc. I couldn't do this without y'all.

**Dedications:** To **_seafeather-ono_** (I am actually rereading your story! Woo for taking a long time to upload! WOO!), **_KatiePotter_** (thanks for your love list again, mush, I love them [no pun here, nothing to see here…]. Thanks for your guess!), **_LeilaTheRainbowNinja_** (Leila! Hai! Of course I banned you from telling everyone, you FANFIC SPOILER, YOU!), **_Tanja88_** (thanks so much! I am trying!), **_Future's-Past_** (wow, two reviews at a time, aren't I a lucky one?! Thanks so much, and your CC is great) and finally **_AccioPotter_** (thank you! I'd love it if you could review the rest of the chapters…?). Thanks so much, you guys! You all rock!

**Disclaimer:** I, unfortunately, do not own the Harry Potter series and such. THIS IS A SAD THING, but I do own all the things that you guys don't recognise. This makes me happier.

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><p><strong>Chapter Twelve<br>****_In your darkest time, it's just enough to know it's there  
><em>****- 'Polaris', Jimmy Eat World**

Light streamed weakly through the windows in the Heads' Common Room. Lily Evans, Head Girl, stirred on the sofa, and stretched out her legs and then her arms. She yawned and sat up, pushing her flame red hair out of her eyes and then it all came back to her.

Finding poor Ellen Lockford in the corridor, being cross examined by Professor Dumbledore and Professor Tindall; staying up most of the night speculating with her friends in the Gryffindor Common Room.

Lily sat up quickly, squinting around her, ignoring the pounding that sounded in her ears when she had moved to an upright position too fast. On the sofa to her left lay James Potter, his black hair even more messy than usual (Lily hadn't thought this possible until now), his gold framed glasses hanging from one ear. He was lying on his back, arms thrown wide, face peaceful, showing none of the emotions that he had shown the previous night on patrol. Checking her watch, Lily saw that it was eleven o'clock, and contemplated waking James, but thought better of it, deciding instead to go and have a shower and get changed into new clothes. She tiptoed past the sofa that the Head Boy was sleeping on, but quickly realised that she could have woken him anyway, as she stubbed her toe on the end of said couch.

Forcing down a swear word that had bubbled up her throat, Lily hopped around the room, clutching her foot. Who would've thought that a stubbed toe could be so painful? James sat up quickly, looking around wildly for the source of the noise which had woken him, and saw Lily jumping around near the fireplace. He yawned, stretching, and then sat up, straightening his glasses while he watched her.

"Problem, Miss Evans?" he asked; Lily spun around quickly, ignoring the amusement which had come through both in his tone, and on his face.

"Oh, no problem, Mr Potter," she hissed through the pain. "Just a broken leg, you know, the usual."

He smirked at her. "Exaggerating a bit here, aren't we?" he commented, crossing his legs. "Since when did a stubbed toe mean you broke your leg?"

"Since now!" Lily insisted, testing her weight gingerly upon the throbbing foot. She winced, but didn't think that she had done too much damage, although the pain certainly suggested this.

James laughed and Lily grimaced, hobbling over to the staircase.

"Laugh all you want, James Potter; I'm going to have a shower and get changed." She said witheringly, disappearing around the corner. He chuckled for a moment before stretching again and standing up, following her up the stairs.

_(When you go I'll let you be )_

Twenty minutes later, once both the Head Boy and the Head Girl had gotten changed into new clothes and had gone down to the Great Hall for breakfast, the group of friends were sat at their usual end of the Gryffindor table, talking about the sign that Professor Tindall had put up outside her office that morning. It had stated that anybody who had news about the recent attacks on Hogwarts students should come to her immediately so that they could talk.

"… It even said that if you were close to the person or people who had done it, you wouldn't be in trouble," Sirius said in a disbelieving tone. "I mean, come on! _Of course_ you're going to be in trouble! What does she think we are, thick?"

Ylana bobbed her head beside her cousin. "I agree, but it's obviously a ruse that will get someone to open up to her, right? That can only be a good thing. If she can find out who it is without the Auror office getting involved, then it will save the school a lot of disruption. Wouldn't it be weird to walk around and find Aurors everywhere that you went?"

"It would put the attacker off though, wouldn't it?" Dorcas said seriously. Marlene kept silent, but nodded; Lily placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "They wouldn't be able to go out and curse people if there were Aurors there to stop them."

They considered this for a moment, before Marlene spoke.

"I say we have at least one day of forgetting about these attacks?" Her voice was timid, as if all the talk about the attacks was physically harming her. Lily instantly felt bad for them continually bringing it back up, so she nodded quickly.

"You're right, we should; Hogwarts is about more than just gossip. Come on, guys, let's go to the library and get our homework done out of the way so that we can enjoy the rest of our weekend."

Remus nodded, thinking that it was a good idea, while the other three Marauders looked at the rest of their friends in shock. Sirius looked amused, as if waiting for someone to jump out and shout 'APRIL FOOLS!'

Finally, James spoke. "Oh, you're not joking."

Ylana stared at them. "No. I think it's a great idea; that way we'll be able to do something fun with the rest of the weekend."

"The library, though?" Sirius protested. "Can't we just do it in the Common Room? I think I might burst into flames if I walk into the library."

Peter, almost as if he was on cue to do so, laughed so loudly that many people who were sitting around them looked around to see what was going on.

"Wormtail, how many times?" Sirius said in a bored tone. "Don't wet yourself."

Ylana fought down a laugh and tried to look vaguely disapproving.

"Guys," Alice whined, trying to force them to do what the rest of them wanted to do. "I will bug you all day until you come to the library with us."

The three of them looked to each other in horror.

"I'll teach you Potions," Lily wheedled, trying to convince at least James to agree with them; if James said yes, Sirius would follow. And it went without saying that Peter would go wherever his friends went.

The bespectacled boy's hazel eyes lit up behind the thin gold frames. "Really? You would?" he asked the redhead excitedly. She barely had time to nod when he was turning to his reluctant friends. "Let's get to the library, then," he commanded, and the bunch of Gryffindors quickly finished their breakfasts before grabbing their bags and making their way to the library.

_( When you go I'll let you be )_

Sometimes, the green light that the underside of the lake gave off around the Slytherin Common Room gave Leilani King a headache. Currently, she was sat in the lightest part of her Common Room that she could find, trying to read the book for Transfiguration. Every time she tried to read another paragraph, her mind kept drifting back to her best friend.

The truth was, since the night that Josiah Thomson had shunned Vixie Brown, neither Josiah or Leilani had hung out with her, and Leilani missed her. She knew that Josiah missed Vixie too, seeing as they had all hung out a lot throughout their years at Hogwarts with their other friend, Alexander Porter. Now, Leilani and Alexander were following Josiah's lead and were ignoring Vixie.

Leilani sighed, giving up on trying to read further, and instead looked over to Vixie. She wasn't sat with her usual circle of admirers around her, but was instead on her own in the corner of the room, head down, trying to focus on her homework. It was so unlike her that Leilani felt worried – she hadn't thought that their leaving Vixie would hurt the latter so much, but they obviously had. It humanised Vixie in a way nothing else had, at least in Leilani's eyes. She also knew that, before too long, Vixie would end up shrugging off their betrayal and would be back in the popular group that she had always been more comfortable in. In the meantime, Leilani and Josiah were lying lower than usual, and they were just trying to escape the scrutiny of the other Slytherins, as they knew that as soon as Vixie was back at the top of the food chain, she would notice them as only she could, and they wouldn't want any unneeded attention.

Until that time, though, Vixie was showing a whole new side of herself, one that Leilani hadn't thought existed. The other girl had never shown how much she valued the two of them as friends, but it showed, now that they were no longer there beside her, that she was lonely, that she did need them, maybe more than she wanted to admit, even to herself.

The pain that they were putting her through was killing Leilani King.

_( But you're killing everything in me )_

After their slow meander to the library, the Gryffindors decided that they would pair up and each pair do a subject – that way, the next group to study that subject would have the previous pairs notes to assist them. Lily and Remus didn't like the sound of 'cheating', so they decided to say that everything that they had written.

It was this idea that led to Lily trying to teach James Potter Potions. He wasn't very good at the subject, even though he excelled in nearly everything else that he did, and this was a fact that mystified Lily. Even when trying to take notes down onto parchment from the text books that were piled in front of them, James' brain seemed to melt into goo. He just couldn't wrap his mind around the words that were in front of him, to combine to correct ingredients on parchment to create the Potion that Lily asked him to hypothetically make. Either that, or he mixed up measurements and timings.

"I just don't understand this!" he exclaimed after nearly an hour of trying, and failing, to memorise the Draught of Living Death. "This is easy stuff, and I know there's a logical way around all of this, but every time I try to remember which ingredients to use, it's like I've run into a brick wall in the dark! I just can't do this," James declared, throwing his quill down onto the desk and deciding that he would just give up.

"Come on, James," Lily said, exasperated. "You've improved since we first started, honest!"

He regarded her dubiously, arms folded across his chest as he leaned back in his chair; his coal black hair was messier than usual with all the times that he had run his hands through it in frustration throughout the tutoring session. "Really?"

The redhead paused, the expression on her face radiating guilt. "Well… Not really, no. But at least now you're trying to understand it! Before, you just didn't try and now you at least understand the sort of logical thinking that is involved to truly understand Potions!"

James narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly at the Head Girl. "I can't believe that you're giving me that bullcrap, Lily Evans. You know as well as I do that I don't know the first thing about the stupid subject. Why did I even take it in the first place?" he questioned himself.

"Because you want to be an Auror?" Lily suggested lightly. She knew that she had made a mistake in saying those words, however, when James' face darkened.

"I _never_ want to be that," he snapped at her. "Never."

There was a silence between them that seemed to stretch miles, until Lily finally recovered herself enough to answer.

"Okay, I won't. I'm sorry if I… I upset you, or if I offended you or something. It was just a thought, you know? Because you were so good when Ellen was attacked and you always seem to do really well in Defence Against the Dark Arts, so I thought maybe that was what you wanted to do. But of course you could do anything, really, because as much as I may hate to admit it, you're very clever."

Lily knew that she was rambling. She knew it, but it didn't stop her from talking through her backtracking.

James smiled a little, just a tug at the corner of his lips, and he unfolded his arms. Leaning forward slightly so that he could see the textbook in front of him, he spoke again in an amused tone. "Very clever, eh? That's extremely high praise coming from the top student in the school. I'm flattered, Miss Evans."

Lily smirked. "Top in the school sounds like a very nice title. I might have to adopt it now and have you all curtsy at my feet."

"Kiss the ground you walk on, that sort of thing?" James questioned, a full blown grin taking hold of his face.

"Of course," Lily responded, shrugging. "But in the meantime, I will suggest something to you to help you remember how to succeed at Potions."

"Oh?" James prompted, wanting to know what it was that she would suggest for him. Anything she said would be a great help.

"You play Quidditch, right? You're good at it – that's why you're the Captain," she began. James frowned, not sure where she was going with it.

"So this means that you have to think logically to understand where to put who, what to make them do and how to play the match, right?"

"Right…" James trailed off, more than a little lost at her words.

"So you just need to think as Potions as a Quidditch season; the match is the potion and the players are the ingredients. You need to assemble them in the correct way, the correct order, so that the match can be won. Or, in real life, the potion can be made." She concluded.

James simply stared at her for a moment as if wondering what the hell she had just said, and then he broke out into a dazzling smile.

"That, my dearest Lily, is a bloody fantastic way of looking at it. I'll definitely try it the next time that we are in the lesson." he told her. And, for the first time since he started taking the subject in First Year, he actually meant it.

* * *

><p><strong>So, what did you think? I'm sorry that it's way shorter than usual, but you know. I have other things on my mind and A Level is pretty hardcore. <strong>

**-Lauren**


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